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THE 



ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 



BY 



JAMES H HYSLOP Ph.D. 

INSTRUCTOR IN ETHICS COLUMBIA COLLEGE NEW YORK 
AUTHOR OF " THE ELEMENTS OF LOGIC " 




NEW YORK 
CHAELES SCKIBNER'S SONS 

1895 



^ 






-x- 



<> 



Copyright, 1895, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



THE CAXTON PRE88 
NEW YORK 



TO 

MY FATHER 

THIS 

BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

The present work is designed as an introductory treatise upon 
the fundamental problems of theoretical ethics, and therefore to 
obtain standing ground from which to consider the practical 
questions that are affected by general principles. The book may 
seem rather an elaborate treatise for an introduction, but so great 
are the complications of ethical problems, so manifold are their 
interests, and so various have been opinions regarding them, that 
a writer to-day must choose between the perfunctory task of pro- 
ducing a mere syllabus of words and the more important duty 
of saying enough to satisfy the wants of those who desire more 
than platitudes, and who wish some insight into the complexities 
of the case. The analysis of various questions has been made as 
complete as reasonable limits would allow, with the special pur- 
pose of trying to throw some light on the perplexities of ethical 
theories, and to present the author's conclusions regarding them. 
This purpose has involved a very exhaustive application of the 
analytic method, which may try the patience of those who desire 
synthetic and comprehensive results. But the writer is con- 
vinced that we shall never get out of the wilderness of scholastic 
controversy and see-sawing with traditional theories until the 
analytic method is first carefully applied and our exact where- 
abouts determined. We may then give a synthetic survey of the 
field without embroiling ourselves in the hocus-pocus of endless 
and futile discussions about words that may have a thousand 
meanings. 

A long chapter has been given on the origin and development 
of ethical problems, which is nothing more than a brief history 
of the principal ethical theories and opinions of the past, be- 
ginning with the period immediately preceding Socrates. It 



VI PREFACE 

has been given as a preliminary step to the right understand- 
ing of present questioDs and their complexity. Present ethical 
reflection is the accumulated heritage of the past, and only the 
historical method can at the same time show us the richness of 
that bequest and the multiplicity of its elements. It is hoped, 
therefore, that the chapter will be a timely contribution for the 
use of teachers who appreciate the value of that method and 
wish such a survey as introductory to present-day discussion. 

I make no apologies for the elaborate treatment of the freedom ■ 
of the will, though the tendencies to determinism by general 
writers, and the indifference of many to both sides, might be an 
excuse for ignoring it altogether. But the importance of the 
question to ethics is so great that no one can neglect it except 
such as coquet with determinism without analyzing their concep- 
tions, and yet endeavor to perform the contradictory task of con- 
structing a system of ethics. The amount of intellectual con- 
fusion on this subject by both sides of the discussion is simply 
amazing. All are, perhaps, agreed that the question is one re- 
garding the possibility of alternative choice, but many of the 
arguments pro and con are wholly irrelevant to it, while few 
writers adequately reckon with the equivocations of the terms 
" determinism," " cause," and " freedom." This lengthy chapter, 
therefore, is an attempt to fully analyze the whole problem, to 
present a solution of it, to conciliate controversy, to fix the mean- 
ing and interest of freedom for ethics, and to obtain a position 
regarding it where discussion is not a logomachy and a sheer 
waste of time. 

Other subjects receive the same kind of analysis, and must 
speak for themselves. I shall simply call attention to the analy- 
sis of conscience, the treatment of reason and desire, and of the 
relations between impulse, instinct, and reason, as attempts to 
secure a way out of much confusion in different writers. Of my 
success I am probably not a judge. 

One thing, perhaps, will annoy some readers and critics, espe- 
cially if they have mastered elementary principles. This is the 
fact of much real or apparent repetition. This, however, has 



PREFACE vn 

been deliberate. The writer's experience with beginners has been 
that he must repeat certain fundamental conceptions over^ and 
over again at different places and at different points of view in 
order that the key to ethical problems may not be buried under 
a mass of matter in which it would not be easily discovered. 
Students must have emphasis and variation or they lose the 
point at issue. This is the reason that condensation has been 
forced to give way to the necessities of pedagogical purpose. 

I am under great obligations to Dr. Norman Wilde for read- 
ing the proofs and for occasional suggestions as the book passed 
through the press. My other debts of gratitude are distributed 
rather equally over too many writers on ethics to make any spe- 
cific acknowledgments for their share in the result. 

JAMES H. HYSLOP. 

Columbia College, December 4, 1894. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTEE I. 
Introduction, » . 1 

CHAPTEE II. 

The Origin and Development of Ethical Problems, . 18 

CHAPTEE III. 

Elementary Principles, , .89 

CHAPTEE IV. 
The Freedom of the Will, 150 

CHAPTEE V. 
.Eesponsibility and Punishment, 4 224 

CHAPTEE VI. 
The Nature of Conscience, . . . . . . .251 

CHAPTEE VII. 
The Origin of Conscience, 284 

CHAPTEE VIII. 
The Theories and Nature of Morality, . , , . 349 

CHAPTEE IX. 
Morality and Eeligion, . 398 

CHAPTEE X. 
Theory of Eights and Duties, . .... 424 



ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 



CHAPTER I. 
INTEODUCTION 

I. DEFINITION. — 1st. The term " Ethics " is derived from the 
Greek word r/0o5 P which denotes "custom," "manners," 
" morals," and finds its equivalent in the Latin " mores,'.' from 
which the English " moral " is derived. The term r/603 again 
is a modified form of i'603, which denotes "habit," "usage," or 
the practice of social life. The difference between the two terms 
was probably very slight. However this may be they expressed 
everything that the body politic of Graeco-Roman life would 
denote by social obligation and practice. This was, then, origi- 
nally the comprehensive content of investigation whenever this 
branch of philosophy was considered. In the process of time 
the term was somewhat narrowed, until it came to denote almost 
exclusively that branch of study which occupied itself with the 
nature, disposition and actions of the individual, and hence 
turned the interests of social life over to Politics. 

2d. Logically, Ethics must be defined as both a science and 
an art. In so far as it is a name for the observation, classifi- 
cation and explanation of certain phenomena, it ' is a science ; in 
so far as it attempts to regulate and to influence human action 
by instruction, admonition or advice, it is an art. Hence we 
may define it as the science of the phenomena of human character 
and conduct, and the art of directing the human ivill toward the 
ideal order of life. This twofold nature of the subject is the 
basis of the division into theoretical and practical Ethics, and 
illustrates many of the complexities of the subject. Considered 



2 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

merely as a science, also, it treats of two distinct classes of 
phenomena, namely, those of the will and those of the world, in 
so far as they represent virtue and the good, or a desirable order of 
things and events affecting the welfare of man. The distinction 
between these will be considered in its place. For the present, 
and for the sake of brevity, we may consider it as embodied in 
the terms character and conduct, which may represent the men- 
tal condition on the one hand, and the external actions on the 
other, which make up the complex idea of morality. The phe- 
nomena of human character are the tastes, disposition, desires and 
aversions, affections, motives, and all mental conditions related 
to the fixed or changeable nature of the will. The phenomena 
of conduct are man's volitions and actions, comprehending all 
forms of behavior affecting his own and the welfare of others. 
Both together constitute the subject matter of Ethics, and they 
are always supplemented by a more or less direct reference to the 
nature and influence of the physical universe upon man as a 
moral agent. All such facts and forces have to be reckoned 
with in the regulation of conduct, and hence cannot escape the 
notice of Ethics. 

3d. There are several current definitions of the subject 
which should receive a passing notice, and this for the large 
amount of light they help to throw upon the nature and com- 
prehensiveness of Ethics. They are largely affected by the intel- 
lectual and social conditions under which they were first formed, 
or by the peculiar views of the philosophers who proposed them, 
as perhaps must always be the case. But they present an inter- 
esting analysis of the whole subject, so that we can regard each 
separate aspect of ethical problems as they were conceived at 
different times and by different persons. Some of these various 
definitions are substantially the following : " The science of right 
and wrong," " the science of duty," " the science of the good, or 
the summum bonum" " the science of man's moral nature," " the 
science of conduct," " the science of the conditions of morality," 
" the science of moral principles," " the science of social obliga- 
tion," et cetera. 



INTRODUCTION 6 

These various conceptions of the subject do not differ essentially 
from the definition we have adopted, unless it be in respect of 
scope and clearness. All of them include at least a part of the 
field covered by our own, but some are narrower, and some rep- 
resent a different point of view. For instance, Ethics, as " the 
science of man's moral nature," is the conception common to 
English thought during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, when the discussion of moral questions was almost wholly 
psychological, and when men were concerned with the problem 
whether a man's individual conscience was the product of his 
experience or % natural endowment. Ethics has a profound 
interest in this question, but it is not the whole nor the most im- 
portant part of its field. Again, Ethics, as " the science of con- 
duct," may not take sufficient account of the fact that a matter 
of important interest to students and practical men alike is the 
relation of motives and character to conduct. In reality we are 
quite as much concerned with all those elements in the man that 
make him an object of admiration, of praise, and of approval, 
as we are in his actions, and hence we cannot help thinking that 
Ethics is quite as much a study of character as it is of conduct. 
A similar limitation must be imposed upon the conception of 
Ethics as " the science of the summum bonum" which denotes the 
highest or the ultimate end of man's conduct. It is this undoubt- 
edly, but it is also more at the same time. It is the science of 
all the conditions leading to this end, and in fact is much more 
concerned with the person seeking such an end than with the 
result obtained by any other agency. This is the , reason that 
we think of morality as representing, first, qualities of character 
and will, and, second, as the actions preserving and promoting 
social order. By supplementing the defects, therefore, of each 
traditional definition by the excellences of the other, we obtain a 
complete account of the complex subject with which we have to 
deal. Hence, we have chosen to represent it as occupied equally 
with persons and with things ; with persons as the agents in real- 
izing an ideal order of social action, and with things and conduct 
as conditions and elements in such an order. For this reason we 



4 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

regard Ethics as the science of moral personality and of moral 
good, or end, one representing the subject's and the other the 
object's character. 

II. CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHICS.— The formal defini- 
tion of Ethics does not manifest all of its distinctive char- 
acteristics. It merely draws a general boundary line between 
Ethics and other sciences. But there are several features of it 
which still more clearly mark its nature and help us to under- 
stand its meaning. 

1st. Ethics is a Science of Values. — It is, therefore, occupied 
with what we choose to call the good as contrasted with the 
merely true. Not that it can ignore, or leave unnoticed the 
field of truth, but that the mere truth about the general phe- 
nomena of nature and man is not its chief object. The truth 
with which it is mainly concerned is that about the good. The 
good is the object of desire, truth is the object of the intellect. 
In contrast with fine art also its object is this good as opposed 
to mere beauty. But it may take up both truth and beauty as 
goods, and in that way establish a close relation between itself 
and other forms of activity. It will not be interested in them, 
however, for their own sake, but as means to the development 
and perfection of man. And again it does not look at facts and 
events with their causes merely as such. It seeks to compare 
them and to distinguish their relative worth to man and his 
aims or his destiny. Hence Lotze delighted to say that its field 
was the world of worths as contrasted with the world of facts and 
laws of the physical sciences. It does not matter what form we 
give this world of values : it may be pleasure, happiness, wel- 
fare, perfection, obedience to the moral law for its own sake, love 
of God, or any other end. It nevertheless represents a function 
quite distinct from the so-called static and dynamic sciences. 
They take facts as they are and try to determine their laws and 
their causes. They consider them as effects to be explained by 
antecedent facts. They, do not care for their worth to mankind. 
But ethics must reduce them to a scale of values, and assuming 
that man is able to modify the forces of nature, must indicate 



INTRODUCTION O 

those particular facts and objects which have the greater value 
to man. Honesty, veracity, chastity, politeness, friendship, jus- 
tice, and all the virtues represent the sense of value which we 
impose upon certain courses of conduct as compared with their 
opposites, and this without regard to the mode of explaining 
such phenomena. Hence, besides looking at facts as events in 
the world, Ethics looks at their worth with a view either to 
adjusting them in the future to man's development, or to his own 
adjustment to them. Ethics thus acts as a judge over the 
world's order rather than as a mere observer of it. 

2d. Ethics is the Science of the Ideal as Contrasted with the 
Actual. — This characteristic or function is closely allied to the 
previous one. The sense of worth or value is a condition both 
of perceiving and realizing the ideal. By the ideal we mean a 
better state of being or existence than we feel has actually been 
realized. Thus, we think that a better condition of justice, a 
greater degree of equality, a higher development of civic virtue 
might exist than actually does exist. We may see about us a 
bad, or even the worst possible world where vice and sin reign 
supreme, and yet conceive and long for a purer and more per- 
fect order. This is conceiving the ideal. Now we must first be 
able to realize the sense of value before we shall be conscious of 
an ideal. But in distinguishing values we may not go beyond 
the actual order of the world. We may only decide the scale of 
preference between events as they occur. But to idealize a 
world is to set up a possible state of existence, perhaps wholly in 
contrast with the present, which it is sought to realize by indi- 
vidual or social effort. The physical sciences do nothing of the 
kind. They explain facts, and do not form ideals or endeavor 
to move the will in the direction of them. The chief function 
of Ethics is to do this, to determine what is an ideal existence, 
and to promote its realization. 

Another way of presenting the same distinction is that Ethics 
treats of what ought to be, not what is. This is only another 
statement for the idea that actual existence can never be made 
an object of duty unless it can be idealized. Then so far as 



6 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

events are not produced by our own wills we can be only specta- 
tors of them. We cannot say that they ought to be realized in 
any other sense than that they would be desirable. But so far 
as what is represents, only actual or past events, it is merely a 
subject for explanation, and we cannot say that it ought to be 
anything else : for to say that a thing ought to be implies, so far 
as it is ethical at all, that it is still to be realized. Hence when 
Ethics deals with what ought to be, it is conceiving an ideal 
event or world which it aims to realize by urging the obligation 
and the possibility of doing so. No other science does this. They 
content themselves within the limits of actual facts, and lay down 
no laws, while Ethics, starting with the world of facts goes on to 
assert the existence of ideal possibilities and to maintain the 
obligation to realize them. Hume remarked this distinction 
between the physical and the moral sciences, and it is one of 
great significance. It determines a difference both of method 
and of matter between them, giving the moral sciences a com- 
plexity of function which belongs to no other. 

3d. Ethics is a Legislative or a Normative Science. — Not 
only does Ethics distinguish between values, and form ideals, 
but it imposes an obligation to respect them. This obligation is 
the sense of duty, or Kant's "catagorical imperative." This 
function of it follows directly upon the other two. There is no 
use to feel the worth of a certain order or to idealize it, if we 
cannot feel that it ought to be realized. The fact that there are 
certain ends, such as perfection, goodness, happiness, or honesty, 
temperance, purity, and the like, which we can and do feel we 
ought to aim at, attests the existence of a phenomenon of great 
importance to moral science. Under that conception we study 
what ought to be, and then lay down its pursuit as a bind- 
ing law upon our natures. Just as Logic, therefore, prescribes 
rules for correct thinking, Ethics prescribes rules for correct con- 
duct. It legislates for the will, while other sciences explain for the 
intellect. It is this characteristic of it which marks the 
transition to Ethics as an art, and which distinguishes its method 
and its object so radically from the natural sciences. In 



INTRODUCTION 7 

fact, the distinction once common between " natural " and 
" moral " science was partly founded upon this peculiar charac- 
teristic of Ethics. It means that, besides knowing how man 
does act, we require to indicate how he ought to act, and what 
end he ought to pursue. It, therefore, seeks to develop and to 
formulate either the respect for virtue or the constraint that 
serves to regulate the human will and to determine the choice of 
ends and actions most consistent with man's highest welfare. It 
is a normative science, therefore, because it endeavors to ascer- 
tain the norms, rules or maxims which formulate the right and 
w T rong modes of conduct, and which are the indispensable condi- 
tions to the rationality of actions as causes are indispensable to 
the rationality of events. 

Ill RELATION OF ETHICS TO SPECIAL SCIENCES.— -It is 
essential to a complete definition of Ethics that we consider at 
least briefly its relations to certain special sciences. We have 
compared it with the natural sciences in general and distin- 
guished it as a normative science, and thus contrasted its func- 
tions with those of the purely causal sciences. But it sustains a 
peculiar relation either of connection, resemblance, or contrast, 
to several special sciences — a relation which helps to define its 
meaning and content more clearly. These particular sciences 
are Psychology, Logic, iEsthetics, Politics and Metaphysics. 
Others might be included, but they are not so important for our 
present purposes, and hence may be omitted. 

1st. Relation to Psychology. — Psychology and Ethics are 
closely related, but may also be sharply distinguished. Thus 
Psychology is the science of the phenomena of consciousness, 
and Ethics is also a science of a certain portion of those phe- 
nomena with their relation to, or issue in, conduct. But both 
the extent of the field and the object, as well as the method of 
the two sciences, are different. Psychology endeavors to show 
how any or all of our mental phenomena come to happen. It 
does not say whether they are true or right. It investigates 
only their laws and causes. Hence, its proper functions are 
observation, classification and explanation of mental events, 



8 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS' 

including cognition, memory, association, reasoning, emotion, 
choice, volition, and subordinate phenomena. But Ethics does 
not investigate certain divisions of these at all, and does not in- 
vestigate any of them in the same way, or with the same purpose 
as psychology ; it wholly excludes cognition, memory, association 
and reasoning from its domain, and even when it includes the phe- 
nomena of emotion and will in its sphere, it does so without 
any reference to explaining them, but with a view to estimating 
their value and relation to moral development. In brief, Psy- 
chology is explanatory, Ethics is legislative. Ethics undoubt- 
edly is conditioned by Psychology — that is, it assumes the laws 
of mind and will utilize them for its own object, but it will not 
investigate or determine them, its chief function being to deal 
on the one hand with those ideals of the intellect which deter- 
mine the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, and 
on the other with the problems of volition and obligation as 
determining whether a man can and ought to aim at the moral 
development of himself and others. It is thus very sharply dis- 
tinguished from Psychology, while in a measure depending upon 
it and occupied in part with the same phenomena. 

2d. Relation to Logic. — Logic is also occupied with mental 
phenomena, but with a more restricted field of them than Psy- 
chology, and with an object different alike from Psychology and 
Ethics. Logic is occupied only with the phenomena of thought 
and inference or reasoning. It thus excludes all direct concern 
with the primary faculties and phenomena of intelligence, and 
also those of emotion and volition. But even when it considers 
those of reasoning, it makes no attempt to explain them. It shows 
those which are valid, and those that are not valid. In other 
words, it is the science of the formal laws of thought, or the laws 
of correct thinking. Its function has thus a close connection with 
that of Ethics, only it is occupied with reasoning, while Ethics 
is occupied with volition or conduct. Logic deals with the ideals 
of the intellect, and so establishes the laws by which we do and 
must reason if we think correctly. Ethics deals with the ideals 
of the will, and so establishes the laws by which we do or ought 



INTRODUCTION 9 

to act, if we act rightly. Logic employs the understanding ; 
Ethics employs the conscience — one the logical, the other the 
moral reason. Furthermore, Logic seems to impose certain obli- 
gations, and in this respect resembles Ethics. But the obliga- 
tions are not to obey the laws of thought, for we. must obey them 
whether we will or not. Its obligations or duties, however, are 
to see that, when we do think, the special contents of thought 
conform to those laws. The obligations of Ethics, on the other 
hand, assume that we can disobey conscience, that we are free to 
do or not to do, as we please. The laws of Logic are the neces- 
sary laws of reason ; those of Ethics are the moral laws of the 
will. In the former case the " laws " are statements of the uni- 
formity of actual phenomena, in the latter the " laws " are in- 
junctions to realize ideal phenomena. Both of them, however, 
discuss the laws of correct action — one the correct action of 
thought, the other of volition. Both determine what is valid, 
but Logic determines what is valid in reasoning, Ethics what is 
valid in conduct. 

3d. Relation to Aesthetics. — The relation between Aesthetics 
and Ethics is also a close one. Aesthetics is the science of the 
laws of beauty, and defines the sphere of the fine arts. Its psy- 
chological field is the emotions, and these are the phenomena 
that connect the subject with Ethics. Aesthetics estimates 
values, but they are the values of art objects, of those objects 
which appeal to the sense of beauty. It is not a science of per- 
sonal worth, or of conduct, not even of what is called moral 
beauty, which is an expression borrowed by analogy from art to 
indicate the satisfaction we feel in the presence of moral perfec- 
tions. But its sole object is impersonal worth in terms of beauty 
as opposed to utility, which is rather the object of economics. 
Ethics, on the other hand, is occupied with personal worth as 
expressed in perfection of will and conduct. Virtue as opposed 
to both beauty and utility is its object. Both sciences, however, 
depend upon the same emotions and idealizing instincts, and are 
so closely connected in this respect that cultivation of the one 
affects results of the other, though one cannot be a substitute for 



iO ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the other in its effects on the character. Aesthetics aid moraliza- 
tion, but is not its equivalent. Ethics purines art, but will not 
produce it. 

4th. Relation to Politics. — The relation between Ethics and 
Politics is closer than in any other case. Both sciences have to 
deal with human action and institutions, and thus seem to be 
occupied with the same field. But the distinction between them 
is clear in spite of this fact. Ethics in its broadest sense compre- 
hends Politics, because whatever Politics adopts must first be 
granted in the court of Ethics. But in its narrower sense it is 
co-ordinate with it. These facts make Ethics in its more compre- 
hensive import co-extensive with Sociology ; in its restricted 
import a co-ordinate species with Politics. The definition 01 
each will make the relation clear. Politics is generally defined 
as the science of government. This comprehends all the institu- 
tions and laws that are instrumental in the regulation of men's 
conduct toward each other. But for the sake of an effective 
comparison with Ethics it should be defined as the science of the 
regulation and restriction of human conduct by law. It thus 
seeks to determine how certain courses of action may be artifi- 
cially induced or prevented. It aims by law to establish social 
order, or a condition of things which the unorganized wills of 
men would not spontaneously produce. It is, therefore, the sci- 
ence of the artificial limitations of human liberty in the protec- 
tion of rights and the regulation of external conduct. On the 
other hand, Ethics is the science of what a man can and ought to do, 
whether government exists or not. It determines the justice and 
validity of all political principles, but it does not investigate the 
means of putting them into force. It is, therefore, concerned 
with the phenomena of free action, or the voluntary choice of 
the good. Hence, in contrast with Politics, it may be defined as 
the science of the extension of human liberty, or of those condi- 
tions under which morality is realized without a resort to civil 
law. For this reason it is strictly the science of the conditions 
under which morality becomes internal as well as external. Pol- 
itics stops short with the attainment of external good, an order 



INTRODUCTION 



11 



in which free morality is possible, though it does not and cannot 
effect this morality. Ethics aims with this to attain internal 
good or virtue, and consequently is concerned with the " good 
will" as well as with good conduct externally considered. 
But it deals with morality only as it is a product of free 
will, while Politics subordinates freedom to the attainment 
of social order. 

The general position of Ethics in relation to the sciences which 
pertain to man is apparent from the following tabular view which 
begins with Anthropology as the most comprehensive term for the 
knowledge of man. Sociology appears in it as the general sci- 
ence of all customs, habits, institutions and conduct affecting his 
development, in so far as they are moral and social products of 
the will : 



Anthropology 



Physiology 
Psychology 

Aesthetics 
Sociology 



Structural. 

Functional. 

Empirical. 

Metaphysical, 
f Painting. 
! Sculpture. 

Music. 
[ Architecture, 
r History. 
I Politics. 

Economics. 

Ethics. 



Aesthetics also deals with products of the will, but the object 
is not immediately moral. Its subdivisions represent those pro- 
ducts which appeal to taste or the sense of beauty, not to con- 
science as the actions or disposition with which Ethics deals. 
The distinction then between Aesthetics and Sociology, though 
both deal with products of will, is that the former concerns 
material products affecting the artistic part of our nature, and 
the latter all actions and institutions affecting human welfare 
social and moral. Economics also represents products of will, 
but these are the material products necessary to subsistance, or 
at least having an exchangeable value determined by the cost of 
production. Hence it is the science of wealth. It treats of 
utility values, as Aesthetics treats of the artistic, and Ethics of 



12 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the moral values. The actions involved, however, like those of 
Politics, are subject to the jurisdiction and authority of Ethics, 
though in respect to object matter the several sciences can be 
classed as co-ordinate with each other. 

5th. Relation to Metaphysics. — The connection between Ethiics 
and Metaphysics is not so close as between Ethics and Politics. 
The reason for this is that they are not co-ordinate sciences. 
Metaphysics is the science of the nature of reality as contrasted 
with the laws of phenomena. It thus, in a measure at least, 
conditions the complete results of all sciences, and so of Ethics 
among them. But these sciences simply assume the ultimate 
principles of Metaphysics without so much as defining, investi- 
gating or validating them. In Ethics we take for granted 
that there is some reality besides the mere phenomena whose 
laws and yalue we study, but we do not investigate its nature by 
ethical methods. But if the possibility of Ethics, as a science, 
of other than purely natural phenomena, or necessarily deter- 
mined events, is raised, we must go to Metaphysics to decide 
the matter, and in this respect Ethics is closely dependent upon 
Methaphysics. But for the facts and for the value of moral 
phenomena, Ethics is wholly independent of metaphysical inquiry, 
and can go about determining the laws and duties of moral life, 
and the validity of moral principles, without first solving any of 
the metaphysical problems of reality. But when certain con- 
troversies are raised, such as the freedom of the will, the nature 
of consciousness, the relation of materialism to moral theories, the 
solution of them must be deferred to Metaphysics. This shows 
that the two sciences may insensibly run into each other, although 
for practical purposes they may be kept distinct. 

6th. Relation to the Physical Sciences. — The relation is not 
close in these cases. Both the method and the object matter of 
the physical and moral sciences are different. All the physical 
sciences treat of natural phenomena, and their causes as opposed 
to phenomena of will and their value. But Ethics cannot dis- 
pense with their conclusions. It is interested in the laws of 
nature and the results of physical science as limitations upon 



INTRODUCTION 13 

arbitrary conduct and as conditions of right adjustment. But 
it does not deal with them as representing the ideal order of things 
to be realized by the human will. It merely assumes them and 
endeavors to establish an order independent, but not in conflict 
with them. Hence, while all the sciences may be tributary to 
Ethics in respect to results, this is neither their direct object nor 
the principle field of Ethics. Its primary object is wholly inde- 
pendent of them in as much as it determines what ought to be in 
contrast with what merely is or occurs without volitional inter- 
position. 

7th. Relation to Religion. — The relation between Ethics, or, 
rather, morality and religion, is not easy to determine in a brief 
discussion. The subject is a very complex one, and must be de- 
ferred for treatment in a separate chapter. It is sufficient to re- 
mark at present that in some respects they are very closely re- 
lated, and in others they are wholly distinct and independent 
of each other. This will be brought out when the subject is 
more fully discussed in a later chapter. 

IV. DIVISIONS OF ETHICS— The general division of Ethics 
is into Theoretical and Practical. This is made according to the 
distinction between its explanatory and its legislative or norma- 
tive functions. While the subject is, in general, distinguished 
from the physical and historical sciences by its normative or 
regulative functions, it is also connected with them in having a 
field for the application of explanatory methods. That is to say, 
there are phenomena in the field of Ethics which require to be 
analyzed and explained, or reduced to logical and scientific 
order. Hence, we have the theoretical function of the science 
concerned with the nature, relations and value of the ideal. On 
the other hand, Ethics ,does not stop with explanation of these. 
It goes on to lay down obligations, laws or maxims for the regu- 
lation of conduct, and to prescribe the means of attaining the 
ends recognized by theoretical Ethics. Consequently there is the 
division of practical Ethics. Theoretical Ethics employs the 
explanatory or scientific method ; practical Ethics, the norma- 
tive or regulative method. 



14 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

V. SCOPE OF ETHICS.— The division of Ethics into theoreti- 
cal and practical, defines, in a general way, the scope of the sub- 
ject. But it does not present the particular conceptions with 
which it has to deal, nor the problems which it is expected to 
solve. In order, therefore, to understand the many questions 
which Ethics has to answer, we must call attention to the range 
of phenomena that come, more or less directly and indirectly, 
under its notice. 

1st. Man's Moral Nature. — Some psychological analysis is 
always preliminary to the study of Ethics, or is assumed in it, 
and it. often requires to be considered for other purposes than 
explaining its phenomena. Hence, before laying down any rules 
for conduct, we must know something of the nature of the being 
to which those rules appeal. This moral nature consists of all the 
mental capacities and phenomena which are essentially connected 
with conduct. These are judgment, conscience, emotion, desire 
and volition, with subordinate phenomena, and they represent the 
psychology of Ethics. All of these come under notice in 
determining the meaning and contents of what is called 
moral. 

2d. The Genesis of Moral Ideas and Faculties. — Besides the 
nature of moral phenomena, we are interested in their origin. 
This is the evolutionistic problem, or the application of the 
theory of development to morality and moral faculties. It in- 
cludes all the various influences — physical, political, religious and 
social — that have been brought to bear upon man's conduct and 
the formation of his character. These influences are summar- 
ized in the notion of environment, which expresses a whole 
group of external agencies limiting and determining man's 
nature and conduct. In the development of man and his 
morality, we have to look at his whole history and the external 
forces affecting his will. But while these have much to do with 
the particular codes of rules he has adopted, they do not repre- 
sent all that the ethical problem desires to solve. They only 
serve to show and to explain the wide divergence of conceptions 
in regard to morality, or the inequalities of men in their moral 



INTRODUCTION 15 

development. But the problem of genesis is nevertheless one of 
the most important in Ethics. 

3d. The Validity of Moral Principles. — Independently of the 
problem of the genesis of morality comes the validity of its rules 
and injunctions. This validity of a moral principle does not 
rest upon the manner in which it came to be recognized, upon its 
origin, but upon its use in the economy of the world. In fact, 
the most important function of Ethics is to determine this char- 
acteristic of a moral maxim, to justify it, to show that it holds 
good whatever the accidents of its historical origin. Thus, be- 
sides learning how respect for life, respect for property, chastity, 
honesty, temperance, came to be recognized as obligatory, we wish 
to know the ultimate ground upon which they rest, and this 
takes us beyond all questions of history and origin, and requires 
us to ascertain the relation between the conduct or attitude of 
will prescribed and the ultimate end which mankind are enjoined 
to realize. 

4th. The Determination of the Good. — Man, in so far as he 
is a rational or intelligent being at all, always acts with refer- 
ence to some end. This end is called his good, or what he would 
regard as such. But he is always supposed to have one ultimate 
end or good to which he subordinates all others. This is called 
his highest good, or summum bonum. Hence, Ethics must study 
the highest end which men actually seek ; and if this comes short 
of the ideal good for all persons, it must determine the good 
which ought to be sought. The object in determining this fact 
is to provide a criterion for measuring the worth of a man's con- 
duct. As a man's ultimate purpose in life, so is his conduct. 
If one is good, other things being equal, the other is good, and 
vice versa, and as Ethics is supremely interested in the merits 
and demerits of conduct, it must determine the nature of the 
Highest Good, or the ideal object for man's pursuit. This may 
be called the objective problem of Ethics. 

5th. The Explanation of Virtue. — This, in contrast with the 
previous question, may be called the subjective problem of Ethics. 
Not only do we judge conduct by its relation to the ideal or the 



16 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

good, but also by the manner or motive with which it is per- 
formed. We want to know not only the fact that a man adjusts 
himself to environment, or conforms to the rule of the good as 
an end, but also that he will do this without regard to the com- 
pelling influence of circumstances, that he makes this the volun- 
tary end of life. Hence, Ethics is concerned in more than exter- 
nal conformity to its rules. It not only wants to see honesty, 
veracity, temperance, obedience to the law practiced, but it 
wants to see them respected and obeyed without the need of 
appealing to force, or merely selfish interests to realize them. 
Ethics wishes also to assert and maintain the importance of the 
" good will," the disposition to pursue the good rationally and 
without regard to the changes of circumstances and exemption 
from police vigilance. It is, therefore, occupied with the phen- 
omena of character, and endeavors to determine the constituent 
elements of virtue as distinguished from merely objective 
good. 

6th. The Determination of Specific Duties. — This is partic- 
ularly the function of practical Ethics, which especially investi- 
gates the means, as theoretical Ethics determines the end, of con- 
duct. It thus classifies the various forms of virtue and good 
which it is sought to realize. The highest good and virtue are 
not always to be attained in the same way. There are various 
relations in life that require express formulation of the moral 
law to suit a certain group of phenomena. Thus, it is necessary 
to recognize the nature and distinction between justice and 
benevolence, the nature and obligations of veracity, honesty, 
chastity. The various relations and conditions of life which in- 
volve these virtues, the individual, the family, and society, all 
come under investigation as determining for us certain specific 
duties, and measuring our obligation to fulfil them. Besides 
there will be the questions concerning the proper and effective 
method of influencing the human will, the educational and social 
agencies necessary to perfect character, and all institutions that 
are helpful to the practice of virtue. In this field, then, Ethics 
will investigate the ground of specific duties, as distinct from the 



INTRODUCTION 17 

general principle of morality, and the 'motive forces for insuring 
their fulfilment. 

VI. SUMMARY — In this introductory discussion we have as- 
certained that Ethics is a science of character and of conduct, of 
good will and good results in human action. Its chief character- 
istics are that it investigates what is man's highest good, and that 
it tries to ascertain the principles upon which this can be ration- 
ally pursued while exercising the functions of a normative or 
regulative science and art. Lastly, we found that it is very 
closely related to several other sciences, and is occupied with all 
the problems of man's moral nature, its genesis, meaning and 
value or authority, conscience, the good, virtue, freedom, duty, 
and whatever is contained in a moral ideal. 

References. — For the nature of Ethics the following books may be con- 
sulted : Mackenzie : Manual of Ethics, Chapter I. ; Bowne : Principles of 
Ethics, Introduction ; Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory, First and 
Second Prefaces. Second Edition ; Schurman : The Ethical Import of Dar- 
winism, Chapter I. ; Porter : Elements of Moral Science, Introduction, pp. 
1-17 ; Alexander (S) : Moral Order and Progress, Introduction, pp. 1-19. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 

INTRODUCTORY.— Reflection upon the nature and obliga- 
tion of morality began as early, or nearly as early, as specu- 
lation upon the universe. In fact it is difficult to keep the two 
modes of thinking apart from each other. Man has as much 
natural interest in his practical relation to the world or to a 
Supreme Being, and the limitations which these agencies may 
impose upon his will as he has curiosity about the causes of 
things. He will always, therefore, associate reflection upon 
his conduct with reflection upon the nature of things. In a 
very large measure what he thinks about his duties, what they 
are in particular, will be determined by the opinions he maintains 
about the universe and his destiny in it. Even if he wishes for 
certain purposes to keep these two phases of thought apart from 
each other, he will find that he cannot wholly effect this result, 
but that his ideas of morality are either directly or indirectly 
molded by his ultimate views about the world and its meaning 
for him. This tendency very early gave rise to ethical reflection, 
and even the earliest philosophers, whose opinions it is safe to 
suppose were not mere myths, are accredited with many wise 
saws about the duties of man. These proverbs cling to their 
persons and history as a part of their philosophic opinions, and 
indicate the same origin for ethical as for metaphysical specu- 
lation. But there is not time or space to discuss this matter in a 
brief outline of its history, and we can only allude to it while 
characterizing the first period of moral reflection which we have 
to notice as laying down the line of all subsequent speculations 
upon moral problems. We may conveniently adopt the usual 
division of periods into Ancient, Mediwval and Modem, Each of 

18 



4 

DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 19 

these represents a typical mode of thought, determining the 
ideals and codes of Ethics applicable to its time. 

I. ANCIENT ETHICS.— This will comprise the period and 
characteristics of Greek thought. The one characteristic of this 
whole period, so far as it affected the moral consciousness of 
Greece, was the overwhelming sense of subjection to power, and 
the necessity of conforming to its laws while longing for freedom 
or exemption from the penalties which that power could inflict 
for resistance to it. Religious and philosophic speculation, 
aided by the reflex influence from the necessity of strong govern- 
ment, emphasized man's subordination to supreme powers, which 
were either conceived as impersonal, or as wholly divested of a 
benevolent interest in the world. This state of mind favored 
ethical codes based upon fear or obedience, with as little respect 
as possible for the power to be obeyed. On the other hand, the 
struggle for political freedom, with its ideals, re-acted upon the 
speculative conception, and encouraged a certain measure of 
libertinism in the individual, and expressed the natural desire to 
be emancipated from the restrictions of law, which was in reality 
only the obverse side of the absolutism at the basis of both 
philosophy and politics. Fate and Nemesis were thus one side 
of Greek moral consciousness, and libertinism the other. Both 
are reflected very clearly in the drama, and mark the two types 
of character, the ascetic and his opposite, which are reflected in 
Greek speculative Ethics. This period again is subdivided into 
several subordinate tendencies according as one or the other 
aspect of it predominated. They will be considered briefly in 
their order. 

1st. The Pre-Socratic Period. — The first stage of this period 
was the religious, and it merged into the philosophic without 
changing the conception of man's relation to the world. The 
religious attitude of mind, however, was the general one, and 
gave the whole period its prevailing tone. This was that the 
customs and laws binding on men were the decrees of the gods. 
In philosophic parlance these were the laws of nature, in so far 
as they represented the fixed conditions to which it was necessary 



20 ELEMEN1S OF ETHICS 

to conform one's life. But the religious mind and political 
interests placed its last defence of existing codes of conduct in 
the will of the gods. This was the divine will theory of moral 
obligation. But two influences served to weaken all the pre- 
suppositions of such a view. They were, first, the unideal char- 
acter of the gods, and second, the rise of scepticism in regard to 
their existence. It was their unicleal character that gave the 
sting to scepticism. But in criticising the religious conception, 
with its doctrine of arbitrary power, the sceptical school based 
its attack mainly upon its doubts about the existence of the 
gods. It did not deny the possible relation between the gods 
and moral law, but cut up by the roots the fact of it on the 
ground that such powers did not exist. The force of their 
argument, however, rested chiefly upon the growing dissatisfac- 
tion with anthropomorphic polytheism, and prejudiced neither 
the philosophic conception of monotheism and pantheism, nor 
the purified conception of a more refined religious consciousness 
which endowed the divine with benevolence as well as power. 
But in connection with the low ideals of Greek life, the political 
struggle for liberty and the increasing scepticism of the age, the 
belief that the customs and laws, which were the moral rules of 
that age, were the expressed will of the gods, was dissolved. 
That was the negative work of the sophists and the sceptical 
school. But they were not content with mere destruction. 
They also presented a positive and constructive theory of moral- 
ity as it was then understood. This consisted of two claims. 
First, that all law, moral and political, was conventional ; and 
second, that the good which all men seek was pleasure. The 
first of these elements merely substituted the human for the 
divine will ; the conception was the same as the theological view, 
but the source was different, and the one merit which it pos- 
sessed was that it explained both the origin of positive law and 
custom, and the practice of Greek life in regard to its submis- 
sion, up to that time at least, to power, whether aristocratic or 
democratic. But this radical doctrine offended both the relig- 
ious and the undeveloped moral consciousness of the best minds, 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 21 

and was the signal for a reconstruction. The second element 
indicated quite as radical a change in the point of view. The 
theological conception based morality upon external authority. 
Virtue in its conception consisted merely in obedience to the 
powers capable of making their will effective. Merit consisted 
in submission. But in making the good pleasure instead of 
conformity to power or authority, the change was from a theo- 
logical to an anthropological point of view. It was the incep- 
tion of an internal authority, but instead of expressing morality 
in terms of obedience, its sanction was found in the end sought 
by the agent. The subject, not the object, determined the course 
of action to be chosen. Hence, here began also the value of the 
doctrine of human liberty, which appears as a part of ethical 
doctrine in Aristotle. But the chief contribution to ethical 
doctrine, made by asserting that pleasure, is the good, was that 
conduct has its qualities determined by the end, or result aimed 
at by the will, though the Sophists would probably not have dis- 
tinguished between the instinctive and the rational attainment 
of this end. They were satisfied with taking the good out of the 
hands of authority, though explaining positive law by convention, 
and placing the good in the object realized by the individual. 
This was the beginning of both the psychological and the utili- 
tarian theories of morality. 

2d. The Socratic Period. — This period of ethical reflection 
represents an entire departure from the doctrine that morality is 
the product of mere authority, human or divine — that is, a cre- 
ation of will, and in its place substitutes the idea that- the merit 
of conduct is in some way a part of the nature of things, and that 
it is determined wholly by the relations of the will to this as an 
eud. Consequently the ' whole Socratic movement, involving 
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, with their minor schools, starts with 
an analysis of human nature, the intention being to find in the 
individual man, not in the power of any one over him, the reasons 
or grounds of morality. Man's nature as a rational being was 
investigated, and the end prescribed by that nature or by reason 
was determined as the true ground for the merit of conduct. 



22 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

The period, therefore, represented the development of maturer 
ideas of human freedom, especially because the sentiment of au- 
thority was discredited. This was the effect of Sophistic doctrine, 
which sought only to explain, not to justify, customary morality 
by convention, and hence the next problem was to show either 
the rational ground upon which existing codes rested, or the ideal 
end which determined goodness independently of authority. This 
was found, according to the Socratic school, in an object of con- 
sciousness, cognizable by the subject, and not merely enforced 
action in conformity to the dictates of an arbitrary power. The 
main difference between this movement and that of the Sophists is 
found in two characteristics. The first of these was the abandon- 
ment of the sceptical spirit and method, and the second was the 
purification of the ideal represented in the reconstructive effort 
of the Sophists. There was a general tendency to abandon the 
idea of pleasure as the highest good, and to substitute for it either 
some other end, or to qualify it by wisdom, or the rational pursuit 
of the good. The movement, however, represents three different 
phases of development. 

1. Soceates and the Minoe Soceatics. — The Sophists had 
claimed to be teachers of virtue, but this claim was accompanied 
by so much scepticism, by the cultivation of so much personal in- 
terest, and the want of due moral earnestness, that it did little or 
nothing to regenerate the moral consciousness of Greece. It was 
only a signal for the better spirits to take hold of the problem 
seriously. This more earnest attempt at reconstruction was be- 
gun by Socrates, and his character, life and death have placed 
him among the foremost of the great men of the world, and all be- 
cause, besides doing much for scientific method, he aroused a 
strong interest in moral questions. 

Socrates did not directly attack the ethical theories of the 
Sophists. He said nothing about the authority of the gods, nor 
did he have anything to say about the doctrine of convention. 
He merely turned the logic and dialectical method of scepticism 
upon itself, and while seeming to be mainly interested in a theory 
of knowledge, his illustrations and constant discussions about 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 23 

virtue and the good, reinforced by conservative impulses against 
scepticism, stimulated an extraordinary amount of interest in 
ethical reflection. His theory about the nature of morality was 
rather a paradoxical one. He did not dispute the value of 
pleasure or happiness as the good, but, seeing the effects of its 
unbridled pursuit, sought to qualify it by making knowledge or 
wisdom the condition of attaining it. His whole ethical doctrine 
is summed up in two propositions, both of which were paradoxes 
even to the Greeks. They were (a) that no man is voluntarily 
bad, and (b) that virtue is wisdom. The difficulties occasioned 
by both of these notions grew out of the equivocations latent in 
the terms " voluntary " and " virtue," on which no stress can be 
laid here. But it is proper to remark the influence which they 
exercise upon subsequent thought. The controversies started by 
the first of these positions terminated in the distinction between 
desire and will, and between impulsive and deliberative or free con- 
duct. The controversies about the second resulted in the distinc- 
tion between natural and moral good or excellence. These 
distinctions, however, were not developed by Socrates. The 
boasting claims of the Sophists had disgusted him, because he 
saw, in spite of their conceit, that they did not know what they 
meant by justice, temperance, courage, about which they were 
forever disputing. He imagined, therefore, that they, with man- 
kind at large, were prevented from being virtuous by not know- 
ing what the good was. He imagined that every man would do 
the right if only he knew what it was. Hence he attributed all 
vice to ignorance. He seems to have made no account of the 
fact that men often deliberately choose what their moral judg- 
ment condemns. Undoubtedly he would have said of such 
persons that they did not really know their own good, but had 
mistaken it, though acting with reference to what they supposed 
it to be. It was this idea that made Socrates attribute all wrong- 
doing to a defect of knowledge, and hence he set about trying to 
define the nature of virtue. He demanded of the Sophists that 
they define what they meant by temperance, courage, justice, 
wisdom, etc., and their failure to make out a consistent account 



24 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

of them was interpreted as proving both that they were ignorant 
of the subject about which they professed so much knowledge, 
and that this ignorance was the reason for their defective morality. 
He found them disposed to seek the good, if only they knew what 
it was, but hopelessly deceived in their knowledge of that good. 
Hence, he set about correcting men's conception of virtue as the 
first condition of moralizing them and announced his paradoxes 
with the view of maintaining that virtue could be taught. By 
this he actually meant that men could be taught what the good 
was, though this was not always what his fellow- thinkers under- 
stood by it. They began to feel the difference between a virtu- 
ous will and the attainment of the good, though they did not 
formulate it. Socrates did not realize the extent to which his 
own strength of character entered into his own choice of the good. 
He felt his defective knowledge, and always being ready to do 
what was right when he knew it, he imagined all others were 
dike himself. He did not imagine that there were persons who 
did not wish to see or to know any other good than that which 
they were pursuing. Hence, he made all defects of character 
originate in ignorance and all virtue in wisdom, and«so thought 
that the whole problem of morality lay in education. Thus he 
was not explaining the ground of virtue, but the means of real- 
izing it. He merely emphasized the importance of morality 
sufficiently to induce among his admirers and disciples a scientific 
account of it. 

There were three characteristics in Socrates which influenced 
his contemporaries in the formation of their ethical doctrines. 
They were (a) an intense conviction that wisdom or knowledge 
was the essential factor of virtue, (b) excellent self-control in the 
regulation of his own personal life and conduct, and (c) the tacit 
supposition that pleasure or happiness was the end which all men 
sought. The first of these represented his special doctrine, and 
the last two were personal traits of character and opinion. These 
three aspects of the man gave rise to as many schools which sim- 
ply exaggerated the one principle they saw in their master. First, 
the Megarians thought that the good was not known, and that 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 25 

the first problem for each man was to go in quest of it. For this 
reason they thought that knowledge or wisdom was the highest 
good, but went beyond mere knowledge of self to knowledge of the 
universe. They thus transcended their master's contempt for 
Metaphysics. Second, the Cyrenaics, perceiving that Socrates had 
a regard to pleasure in his conduct, maintained thafr virtue con- 
sisted in the rational pursuit of it. They admitted the impor- 
tance of knowledge, but they thought that men had a better 
knowledge of what the good was than Socrates asserted. Hence, 
they maintained that virtue consisted, not in the quest and pos- 
session of wisdom, but in the right or rational application of it to 
conduct. Pleasure, and that of the present moment, was the 
good, and wisdom was necessary to choose correctly when and how 
it was to be obtained. Third, the Cynics admired in Socrates his 
self-control and independence of the pleasure of the moment, or 
rather of those impulses which lead a man blindly into wrong- 
doing. They agreed with him that speculative research into the 
nature of the good and of virtue was necessary to right conduct, 
but " they maintained that the Socratic wisdom, on the exercise 
of which man's well-being depended, was exhibited, not in the 
skillful pursuit, but in the rational disregard of pleasure, in the 
clear apprehension of the intrinsic worthlessness of this and most 
other objects of men's common aims." In this the Socratic self- 
control becomes contempt for pleasure. 

The Megarian movement develops into the systems of Plato 
and the Neo-Platonists, and into that of Aristotle in a less de- 
gree. The Cyrenaic position develops into that of the Epicu- 
reans, and the Sceptics of the New Academy. The doctrine of the 
Cynics develops into that of the Stoics, in which pleasure appears 
either as an evil, or as a morally indifferent object of will. Each 
of these tendencies must be briefly sketched. 

2. The Platonic Development. — Plato derived from Socra- 
tes both his intellectual and his moral stimulus. But he did not 
stop with his master's contempt for metaphysical knowledge. On 
the contrary, he made his ethical doctrine very largely consist in 
its dependence on such knowledge. When Socrates was called on 



26 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

to give a reason for certain courses of conduct, in spite of his 
predetermination to wholly discard Metaphysics, his naive religious 
belief in a providence induced him to point to the goodness of 
nature's order, and its providential arrangement. In this, or in 
his teleological view of the world, he virtually recognized the need 
of adjustment to its conditions and ends, and prepared the way 
for the departure of the Megarians and the more developed system 
of Plato. But he did not even see this promised land which his 
unconscious instincts pointed out. His disciple, however, saw it 
and entered into its possession. 

There were three main influences which converged in produ- 
cing Plato's conception of morality or virtue. The first was his 
antagonism to the doctrine of Heraclitus ; the second was his 
opposition to the sophistic doctrine of the conventional origin of 
moral law ; and the third was the notion that man's chief end 
was the good which was fixed in the eternal nature of things, 
and not in the pursuit of transient pleasures. Much the same 
interest lay at the basis of the first two of these influences, but 
they represent slightly different motives when taken in different 
connections. 

In opposition to Heraclitus, who saw nothing but flux or 
change in the universe, Plato sought something real, permanent, 
eternal. He was not satisfied with a universe of mere phenom- 
ena which represented nothing but birth and decay, perpetual 
creation and destruction. On the metaphysical side, such a 
doctrine conflicted with the unity of consciousness and the de- 
mand for the correlate of all phenomena; namely, that of 
which events were modes. On the ethical side it made a principle 
of human conduct, a law of uniform action, impossible. Hence to 
satisfy both the metaphysical and the ethical demand, Plato set 
up his "ideas" or forms, types of permanent reality, which 
represented the eternal nature of things. In Ethics this posi- 
tion was an a priori assault on the conventional theory of 
the Sophists, which made morality the sport of legislation and 
the pursuit of personal interests in a world without fixed or 
rational order. It will be seen, then, why Plato did not defend 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS I i 

the theological theory. The Sophists, had they admitted the 
existence of the gods, would not have objected to making moral 
law a product of their decrees. Hence Plato, believing in 
their existence, might have referred morality to their authority, 
but he sought its ground elsewhere, in the eternal nature of 
things, to which even the divine was subject. He would not 
recognize that moral law could be the creation of any will or 
authority. He could conceive it only as an order of things 
which must or ought to be the object of all wills whatsoever. 
Hence, without defending or attacking the theological view, he 
opposed the theory of convention because it implied either that 
moral law could be created by an exercise of power, or that no 
law whatever could be imposed upon the individual. He was as 
much afraid of anarchy, on this account, as we are to-day, and 
so he sought a fixed law in the constitution of nature according 
to which man must order his conduct, if he would realize the 
good. Hence, following the tendencies of the Megarians, spring- 
ing from the tacit assumptions of Socrates' teleological doctrine of 
providence, he sought in something external to man the good 
at which it was his duty to aim, or to which his conduct should 
conform. He looked at the world and saw that everything was 
called good or bad, according as it did or did not realize the " idea " 
or perfect form which it represented. From this he sought to 
determine the highest good which subordinated all particular 
things to it, and finding it, he made morality to consist in realiz- 
ing it as the chief end of man.* In this he found an end 

* Professor Sidgwick {History of Ethics, p. 37) explains this tendency 
in Plato in the following interesting manner : " Since all rational ac- 
tivity is for some end, the different arts or functions into which human 
industry is divided are naturally defined by a statement of their ends or 
uses, and similarly, in giving an account of the different artists and function- 
aries, we necessarily state their end, ' what they are good for.' It is only so 
far as they realize this end that they are what we call them. A painter 
who cannot paint is, as we say, ' no painter/ or, to take a favorite Socratic 
illustration, a ruler is essentially one who realizes the well-being of the 
ruled ; if he fails to do this, he is not, properly speaking, a ruler at all. 
And in a society well ordered on Socratic principles, every human being 



28 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

which could not be confused with pleasure, because this last was 
a transient phenomenon in human experience, a passing state of 
feeling. Thus, the ultimate good was something different from 
pleasure, and independent of any individual will. Plato went so 
far as to identify it with God, and thus founded his Ethics upon 
an eternal principle. But in so doing he neither abandoned the 
psychological standpoint of his school nor exhausted his doc- 
trine by this conception alone. He we"nt on to show that virtue 
consisted in the rational pursuit of this end, and the emphasis 
which he placed upon wisdom or knowledge secures his alle- 
giance to the Socratic movement, in spite of his excursion into 
Metaphysics. In other words, man must consciously and ration- 
would be put to some use ; the essence of his life would consist in doing 
what he was good for. But again, it is easy to extend this view throughout 
the whole region of organized life ; an eye that does not attain its end by 
seeing is without the essence of an eye. In short, we say of all organs and 
instruments, that they are what we think them in proportion as they fulfill 
this function and attain their end : if, then, we conceive the whole universe 
organically, as a complex arrangement of means to ends, we shall under- 
stand how Plato might hold that all things really were, or ' realized their 
idea,' in proportion as they accomplished the special end or good for which 
they were adapted. But this special end, again, can only be really good so 
far as it is related to the ultimate end or good of the whole, as one of the 
means or particulars by or in which this is partially realized. If, then, the 
essence or reality of each part of the organized world is to be found in its 
particular end or good, the ultimate ground of all reality must be found in 
the ultimate end or good of the universe. And if this is the ground of all 
reality it must equally be the source of all guidance for human life ; for man, 
as part and miniature of the Cosmos, can have no good, as he can have no 
being, which is not derived from the good and being of the universe. Thus 
Plato, without definitely abandoning the Socratic limitation of philosophy 
to the study of human good, has deepened the conception of human good 
until the quest of it takes in the earlier inquiry into the essential nature of 
the external world from which Socrates turned away. Even Socrates, in 
spite of his aversion to physics, was led by pious reflection to expound a 
teleological view of the physical universe, as ordered in all its parts by 
Divine Wisdom for the realization of some divine end ; what Plato did was 
to identify this Divine End — conceived as the very Divine Being itself — 
with the good that Socrates sought, of which the knowledge would solve all 
the problems of human life." 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 29 

ally pursue the end which nature has fixed for him as his high- 
est good, in order to be moral. 

For the realization of this good, Plato must assert the existence 
of a soul and its immortality in opposition to the materialism of 
Atomic, Heraclitic and Sophistic doctrines. The soul, however, 
inhabits a body which is the seat of all sorts of conflicting desires 
and impulses, each seeking its own satisfaction without regard to 
others or to reason. It is the business of the moral life at least 
to bring these into harmony, and hence accepting the general 
judgment of the Greek consciousness that moderation was the 
typical virtue (apjjiovia, GVfijjLETpia, jj.rjdev ayav, Godfypo- 
(Tvvify jx^aoripy etc.) he sought by his psychology to 
provide the principle by which this should be effected. 
He assumed a twofold function of mind, the cognitive and 
the regulative function, though he did not sharply dis- 
tinguish between the two processes. The former was con- 
cerned with knowledge, and the latter with the control of the 
impulses, but the essential element of this control was that it 
was rational, the effect of knowledge, and here appears the psy- 
chological importance of knowledge in right conduct. The fol- 
lowing scheme represents Plato's psychology : 

Intellectual f g? djt * = f. e f ^ io P (Appearance). 
, Pn ■.! x < ooza = Belief (Opinion), 
cognitive; ^ k%i6ri mv = Knowledge (Intuition). 

Regulative f ^ lQv /^ = Appetite (Desire). 
' dvjius = Impulse (Passion). 
vov c, = Reason (Conscience). 



Mental Powers 



(Active) 



In this scheme the terms in brackets represent the more liberal 
translation of Plato's conception, and the others their modern 
equivalents, as far as that is possible. Appetite refers to the 
organic cravings which still go by that name : impulse, the higher 
appetencies more closely related to reason, but not of it. Both 
represent irrational desires, and must be under the domination 
of reason, which is simply Plato's term for our idea of conscience. 
Plato illustrates their relation by the celebrated myth of the 
chariot, whose steeds were appetite and impulse, and whose 
driver was reason. He represented the steeds as wild and 



30 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

unordered beings who were sure to dash the chariot to pieces and 
to produce general ruin, unless they were directed by a wise and 
intelligent charioteer. Such a functionary was reason. It was 
the regulator and director of blind impulses, guiding them to 
an intelligent end. 

Though Plato thus distinguished between rational and irra- 
tional conduct, the distinction does not coincide exactly with our 
own similarly expressed, though we can trace the lineage of 
present conceptions to a Paltonic origin. Rational and irrational 
at present implies the contract between the voluntary and the 
involuntary excellences or virtues, but Plato did not distinguish 
between the natural and the acquired good qualities. Hence his 
rational conduct was conscious as opposed to unconscious action, 
but not necessarily deliberative as opposed to non-deliberative 
action. It was reserved for Aristotle to analyze the problem at 
this point more carefully. With Plato reason expressed less of 
freedom and spontaneity than of merely intelligent activity. But 
he drew, once for all, the distinction between conscious and 
instinctive conduct, which was the difference between a knowledge 
of the end we are seeking and purely blind unintelligent action. 
He thus developed more clearly than Socrates the notion that 
consciousness or intelligence is the first condition of responsible and 
therefore of moral conduct. Plato did not say as much as this, 
but his doctrine ultimately terminated in that conception of the 
case, when rationality came to imply freedom and deliberation as 
well as consciousness. 

On the basis of this psychology Plato classified and determined 
the character of the several virtues. He adopted the four 
cardinal virtues of Greek tradition as the fundamental types of 
morality, and placed wisdom at the head of the four. They 
were Wisdom ((ppovr/(Ti5 or (Xocpia), Courage (avdpsia), Tem- 
perance or Moderation {poocppoGvvij), and Justice or Upright- 
ness (piKaioavvjf). In this classification a farther peculiar and 
interesting analysis was attempted which prepared the way for 
an important distinction by Aristotle, which still holds in the 
science of Ethics. Plato has but three faculties, and he must find 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 31 

the unity of these virtues within his scheme. On the one hand 
Temperance is the virtue of appetite, and Courage the virtue of 
impulse ; that is, they represent the right use and direction of 
these desires. According to his conception, Wisdom is their 
conditioning virtue, and must be their essential quality or 
accompaniment. On the other hand, Justice is not disposed of 
in the scheme. But it seems that at other times Plato makes 
Justice or Uprightness the unity and principle of the others, 
showing that his mind was not wholly clear as to the method of 
unifying them by a single principle. But he vaguely anticipated 
the distinction between knowledge as the good or object of the 
intellect, and righteousness as the good or object of the will, the 
distinction between knowledge and virtue which Socrates never 
could admit. This only makes clear that Plato's conception of 
virtue never went beyond the good, as an object of will or desire, 
except as he obscurely caught a sight of what was meant by 
justice or righteousness ; namely, a quality of will as opposed 
to a quality of intellect. Had he distinguished between legality 
and equity he might have clarified his views very considerably. 
But he did determine once for all the conditioning effect of 
knowledge or intelligence upon the direction of human impulses, 
and thus showed how necessary it was to the attainment of 
the good, and to the doctrine of responsibility as later de- 
veloped. 

The contributions of Plato to the ethical problem may be 
summarized in the following manner : First, he made morality 
to consist of conformity to reason, as opposed to impulse, on the 
one hand, and to authority on the other. This conception re- 
mains as a permanent contribution to the science. Second, he 
founds morality upon the relations between action or law and 
its end, and not upon the relation between law and its cause, and 
hence originates that tendency which arises to substitute respect 
for fear as the true motive to virtue. Both of these positions 
show how Plato belongs to the psychological or subjective 
school, though other characteristics take him out of it. Third, 
he identifies the ultimate Good with God, and thus moves toward 



32 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

a doctrine of absorption, as found in Neo-Platonism. This is 
the metaphysical and religious element in Plato's ethical theory. 
Fourth, he reinforces the Pythagorian doctrine of immortality 
as a moment or characteristic in ethical life and theory. He 
thus made the present life a probation for another, and extended 
the area of time and conditions affecting conduct. Fifth, he gave 
a practical embodiment of his conceptions in an ideal of social 
life, sacrificing the individual to the organism. In this his 
politics and ethics were united. 

3. The Aristotelian System. — The first fact of special in- 
terest in Aristotle is that he wholly separates his Ethics from 
Metaphysics, and in this way preserves intact the fundamental 
principle and spirit of Socrates. Both his Ethics and his Poli- 
tics are distinct from all of his metaphysical conceptions, and 
hence we find him wholly departing from the religious ideas and 
associations of the Platonic system. The doctrines of im- 
mortality and of the ultimate end or good of the universe are 
not touched upon as elements in an ethical theory. Hence he 
stands only upon an anthropological and psychological founda- 
tion. His ethical and his political theories represent that both 
public and private action have the same object — namely, human 
welfare or happiness ; but they employ different methods. His 
first step in treating the subject is to maintain, at least by im- 
plication, that all conduct obtains its merit or demerit from the 
end sought. But he finds no occasion to assert this as a disproof 
of theories of authority. He simply treats the fact as a truism. 
The end, however, which he affirms to be the highest good is 
well-being (evdaifiovia). He meant by this all that we mean 
by happiness, and also the conditions of realizing it, or connected 
with it. This happiness is not pleasure (?)dovrj), as con- 
ceived by the Sophists, nor feeling as general pleasure, but a 
state of being or perfection which would find pleasure or happi- 
ness as one of its concomitants or consequences. Aristotle thus 
becomes the founder of what may be called Perfectionism, or the 
theory which makes perfection rather than mere feeling the 
highest good. The chief improvement of ethical theory, how_ 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 33 

ever, which he introduces, comes from his thorough psychological 
analysis of the problem. 

We have seen the paradox of Socrates concerning the iden- 
tity of virtue and knowledge, the involuntary character of vice } 
and the teachability of virtue. Though the way to solve them 
should have been clear to Plato, he seems to have wholly failed 
in the effort. He still mistook and exaggerated the nature of 
wisdom as the good, and fluctuated between two opinions on the 
question whether virtue could be taught or not. On the one hand, 
was the common consciousness with which he sympathized, and 
which thought that men could be educated in virtue. With this 
Plato's acceptance of the Socratic doctrine agreed since he held 
that men could be influenced by ideas. On the other hand, was his 
doctrine of reminiscence, that knowledge was not produced, but 
only called into clear consciousness by education, and also a wide- 
spread conviction that a man's excellences were a constitutional 
part of his possessions ; and hence between these two views Plato 
came to no final decision. It was at this point that Aristotle began 
his analysis. His first step was to distinguish between two kinds 
of "virtue." These were natural and moral virtue. He could do 
this because in Greek usage virtue (apstrj) denoted excellence, 
good qualitj 7 , or perfection, and this might be something which 
was a natural endowment of men, or it might be something ac- 
quired by their habits. What Aristotle saw was the distinction 
between things or natural qualities which we admire or dislike, 
and moral qualities which we praise or condemn. Both of these 
were confused in the common use of virtue or excellence. With 
Socrates it meant any good, and knowledge was the highest form 
of it. But Aristotle, observing that morality is concerned, mainly, 
if not exclusively, with the distribution of praise and blame, dis- 
tinguishes between those excellences which are a part of a man's 
endowment, and those which are a product of his will. The moral 
virtues are the latter ; and from Aristotle onward virtue, except in 
a few sporadic phrases outside of Ethics, denotes a quality of will 
or conduct — that is, it denotes' moral as opposed to natural excel- 
lence. But while making moral excellence or virtue a product 



34 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

of will, lie does not consider it such when the person merely 
happens to act casually in conformity with the good, but it must 
be a habit of his actions. Thus, to be virtuous, a man's conduct 
must be a law for him, the regular expression of his will, and in 
this way Aristotle anticipates, though he does not develop, the 
view that virtue or moral merit consists in action according to a 
formal law, rather than the pursuit of momentary goods. The 
important feature, however, of the doctrine is that he makes it a 
habit rather than a faculty or endowed excellence, and in 
this way he limits morality to the will, excluding it from all 
the operations of the intellect, as such, and from all actions 
or qualities considered as natural and as opposed to voluntary 
events. But this step necessitates another. Following the Pla- 
tonic conception of a number of impulses or desires struggling 
for the mastery of the soul, all of which Aristotle assumes to be 
natural instincts requiring the guidance of reason, he indicates, 
in accordance with the common conception of moderation as the 
chief virtue, that moral excellence consists in the mean between 
the excessive and the deficient gratification of natural desires. 
Here again we find morality defined by reference to the will rather 
than to the intellect, and its whole character made the result of 
control over irrational inclinations. Thus, his view is summar- 
ized by Schwegler. "Virtue," Aristotle maintained, " is the 
product of repeated moral action ; it is a quality won through 
exercise, an acquired moral ability of the soul. The nature of 
this ability may be characterized as follows : Every act accom- 
plishes something as its work ; but a work is imperfect if either 
in defect or excess. The act itself, therefore, will be similarly 
imperfect either by defect or excess ; nor will an act be perfect 
unless it attain to a right proportion to the due mean between 
too much and too little. Virtue in general, then, may be defined 
as observation of the due mean in action. But what is enough 
or the mean for one man may not be so for another. The virtue 
of a man is one thing, but that of a wife, a child, a slave, is quite 
another. In like manner there must be consideration of time, cir- 
cumstances and relations. Hence, only so far as there are certain 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 35 

constant relations in life will it be possible to assign also certain 
leading virtues. Our constant human relation, for example, is 
that of pleasure and pain. The moral mean in this reference, 
then, will be fortitude or courage, neither to fear pain nor to seek 
it. The due mean in regard to pleasure, again, as between 
apathy and greed, will be temperance. In social life the mean 
between the doing and the suffering of wrong, between selfishness 
and weakness, is justice." Throughout the whole scale of the vir- 
tues, Aristotle endeavors to cany out his doctrine of the mean be- 
tween excess and deficiency, which is only his phrase for what 
Plato meant by the regulation of desire and impulse by reason, 
while at the same time he exalted into a philosophic principle 
the common adage about moderation {aoo^pocrvvi^ /^£(?6Tr?3, 
firjdtv ayav). 

But having distinguished between natural and acquired or 
moral virtues, and limited the latter to phenomena of will, he 
goes on to distinguish between the voluntary and involuntary 
actions of man. This distinction is very intimately connected 
with the former. If all excellences were alike, praise and blame 
would have to be applied to all or excluded from all. But 
having maintained that praise and blame attached only to moral 
actions, respectively virtue and vice, he must farther distinguish 
between voluntary and involuntary actions as a means of refu- 
ting the Socratic claim that virtue or goodness was voluntary, 
and vice or badness was involuntary. Aristotle made both 
voluntary, and thus attached praise to virtue and blame to vice ; 
while Socrates could only apply praise to virtue, but not blame 
to vice. Aristotle thus excluded natural excellences, and invol- 
untary actions from the proper province of Ethics. But he went 
on to distinguish two kinds of voluntary actions — namely, the 
impulsive and the deliberative. Involuntary acts are neither 
praiseworthy nor blameworthy. Voluntary acts may be so, but 
contain different degrees of iniputability, only those which are 
deliberative being rational. Deliberative actions, he maintains, 
represent a certain degree of intellectual maturity, and he rather 
asserts that they are not found in animal life. In this way 



36 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

Aristotle endeavors to establish the fact that man is the cause of 
his own actions, and that when he deliberates, is responsible for 
them. We have in this position an elaborate analysis and ex- 
planation of the freedom of the will — an analysis which remains 
a permanent acquisition to philosophy, and represents a most 
important step in advance of Plato. The latter seems never to 
have carried freedom beyond the conception of mere " power of 
self-motion," while the freedom that conditions imputability was 
by Aristotle made deliberative, and the doctrine of moral re- 
sponsibility placed upon a basis which it has retained ever since 
with those who are not determinists. 

In contrast with the moral virtues, Aristotle takes up the 
intellectual, which are the natural excellences. These are 
scientific capacity (Knowledge), artistic ability (Art), practical 
insight (Prudence), genius (Wisdom), and moral insight (Reason 
or Judgment). Judgment or reason he defines as the discern- 
ment of what is equitable, and in this shows that he still used 
the term reason to denote the source of ultimate truth and the 
regulator of irrational impulses after the manner of Plato. 
These virtues, however, Aristotle regards as conditioning the 
moral virtues in their developed form, showing that, although he 
originated the limitation of the moral virtues to the will, and 
ultimately determined the limitation of the word "virtue" to 
morality, he did not go so far as to make morality a matter of 
mere will, as the idealists often do. But he departed far enough 
from his masters to abandon the notion that knowledge was the 
essence of virtue, and affirmed that it was the condition of it ; 
while the tendency to confine morality to the phenomena of 
volition ultimately terminated in a theory that it consisted in 
" good will " alone. 

In the treatment of Justice (diKaio6vvrf) Aristotle also 
introduces a distinction. Plato makes no important difference 
between legality and equity. Aristotle draws this line very 
carefully and clearly. He divides justice into civil justice, or 
legality, and moral justice or equity. The object of both is the 
same, but the means of attaining it are different. The agency 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 37 

for securing civil justice is government or law; for securing 
moral justice, it is good will or fairness. This distinction de- 
velops into the separation of Ethics and Politics, which was tol- 
erably well effected by Aristotle. It represents the distinction 
between subjective and objective goodness. But as this contrast 
was not more than hinted at by the Greeks in general, or by 
Aristotle in particular, we can only allude to it as in the germ 
in the thought of this master. Besides, it fixes for all time the 
distinction between law and equity, and so determines the fact 
that politics must ultimately obtain its authority from ethics, 
which, in the last resort, appeals to reason and not to convention. 
Here we find the principle of both Socrates and Plato, and a 
refutation of the Sophistic doctrine, in that the real question does 
not concern the origin of positive law, but the ground of its 
validity, its equity. 

When Aristotle comes to assign the life that represents the 
ideal good to be striven for, he makes it the contemplative life, 
and in this he remains true to the Socratic conception of the 
place occupied by wisdom in the scale of virtue or good. Plato 
had distinguished between the pure and the mixed pleasures, 
placing the latter much lower in the scale of ends, and connected 
the pure and unmixed pleasures with the activities of the intel- 
lect. The fact also that he made the philosopher the ruler of his 
Republic, and exalted the speculative life above all others, ex- 
plains how Aristotle merely follows in his master's footsteps in 
making the contemplative life the true one for realizing the 
highest good. This was idealizing the function of science and 
philosophy. But after all it only reflects the natural impulse of 
all the higher intellects of Greece, so one-sided and exaggerated 
in Neo-Platonism, and was a prominent characteristic in the ar- 
istocratic and national -tastes of the race. It was the apotheosis 
of knowledge, and the shadows of that influence still extend over 
all countries where Greek conceptions have determined their 
culture. 

Aristotle's Ethics may be summarized in the following proposi- 
tions: First, he separates Metaphysics and Ethics. Second, he 



38 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

repudiates pleasure, and accepts well-being or perfection as the 
summum bonum. Third, he distinguished between intellectual or 
natural, and moral excellence, making morality a habit of will 
instead of a quality of intellect pr nature. Fourth, he distin- 
guished between voluntary or conscious, and involuntary or un- 
conscious action, and between impulsive and deliberative action, 
so as to develop a complete theory of freedom and responsibility. 
Fifth, he resolved all virtue into a mean between excess and de- 
ficiency, showing how reason (conscience) regulates the impulses 
toward either of these extremes. Sixth, he distinguished between 
justice and equity, separating Ethics and Politics, though condi- 
tioning the rights of the latter upon the former, and thus displaced 
the doctrine of convention. Seventh, his practical application 
of the ideal was placed in the contemplative life, reflecting the 
spirit of his race, and probably the consciousness of the political 
decline of his age, when democracy made it impossible for the 
noblest men to engage in politics. This is the continuance of 
that retirement from the world which was taught by Plato, en- 
couraged by the Stoics, and made a religion by Neo-Platonism. 
It was the asceticism of Plato, without the metaphysics, that 
conditioned it. 

3d- Post-Aristotelian Ethics. — There are three schools repre- 
senting this period : the Stoic, the Epicurean and the Neo-Pla- 
tonic, but all characterized by a reversion to the method of look- 
ing to an external order for determining the maxims of morality 
though not wholly abandoning psychological analysis of the 
problem. The Epicureans, however, in the choice of the end of 
conduct remained faithful to the psychological standpoint in as 
much as they made it pleasure. But they had a distinct regard 
to the external order in determining the means to this end. The 
other two schools emphasized, one of them conformity to the ideal 
order of nature, and the other, ecstasy or absorption in the abso- 
lute. The whole period was characterized by the decline of po- 
litical and social life. Athens had been conquered first by 
Sparta and then by Macedonia, both of which represented an 
inferior civilization. The old religious system and beliefs had 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 39 

crumbled into ashes at the touch of scepticism, and thus, the 
passing of that brilliant period of culture with the commercial, 
literary and political system which it had built, was followed by 
general anarchy, the want of all moral restraint, which made it 
impossible for the sage or the wise man to live contentedly in the 
midst of it. The nobler intellectual spirits, therefore, sought 
their highest good in withdrawal from all participation in polit- 
ical life — the Stoics because of their contempt for its baseness, the 
Epicureans because, on the one hand, the intellectual life was 
incompatible with it, and on the other, their individualistic and 
egotistic Ethics required every man to secure pleasure or happiness 
for himself; and the Neo-Platonists, because they thought the 
world unworthy of them, and must seek their good in religious 
ecstasy. Two schools were thus decidedly ascetic in their ethical 
ideals, and the other more free, terminating in libertinism, though 
its first representatives taught and practiced self-control as the 
condition of the greatest possible amount of happiness. 

1. The Stoics. — The starting point of stoic Ethics was in 
their system of physics or metaphysics, which was a kind of 
materialistic pantheism, owing to the fact that they could not 
comprehend an idealistic view of the world. Following Aris- 
totle, they had imposed so much confidence in the deliverances 
of sense that the antithesis between the subjective and objective, 
hinted at in Democritus and the sceptics could not be appreci- 
ated, and hence the unity which they found in the world was 
materialistically conceived. This did not prevent them from 
conceiving it as the embodiment of reason. Reason was itself a 
fine fiery ether, and differed from other elements only in the 
supremacy of its nature and of its power in regulating the 
order of the world. All nature was its expression, as a univer- 
sal rational order. Hence reason and nature were practically 
one in their value and significance for man. In their Ethics, 
therefore, following the formula of Plato, the highest duty of man 
was confo?'mity to nature or reason, whether this nature or rea- 
son be viewed in the world or in man. Looking upon the uni= 
verse as a divine order, they could assert that man's supreme 



40 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

good lay in adj ustment to that order, imitation of its harmony, 
submission to its law, and lookiDg upon man as a group of con- 
flicting forces, of which reason wag the higher and better, they 
could admonish him to follow reason and to free himself from 
the slavery of passion. Both of these features are decidedly 
Platonic, one being metaphysical and the other psychological in 
conception, and as man was only a part of nature the same for- 
mula applied to both of them. The life according to reason was 
the life according to nature. 

The highest good according to the Stoics was virtue. This 
seems a strange formula to modern thought, but it has a mean- 
ing much different from what might be supposed. The highest 
good must be an end, while virtue to our minds expresses a 
quality of will in reference to an end other than itself. It 
would therefore seem strange to say that virtue is the summum 
bonum, as if a quality of will could exist in reference to itself 
alone and without reference to any other end. The stoical for- 
mula, therefore, seems paradoxical. But the many sided meaning 
of the Greek idea of virtue (aperr?), makes possible a conception 
not suggested by the modern narrower import. In Greek it 
denoted variously "good," which might denote either an end or 
a quality of will, "excellence" or perfection, a quality of being, 
and moral merit or " virtue," which we now limit to the will. 
The second of these meanings removes the paradoxical nature of 
the formula, and hence if we regard the Stoics as holding with 
Aristotle, that the highest good is perfection, we can both under- 
stand their maxims and the relation of their doctrine to both 
the Socratics and the Epicureans. It was moral perfection, but 
it had reference to a state or quality of being, rather than an 
abstract quality of action, and virtue is a quality of action in 
reference to an end, and so cannot be made an absolute ; per- 
fection, is an end and may be ultimate. Hence, from this we 
may see how the Stoics could regard " virtue " as the highest 
good. This opposition to Epicureanism is perfectly intelligible 
in this conception : otherwise it is not. But in saying that vir- 
tue is the highest good they did not mean to say that pleasure 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 41 

should be eschewed. They admitted that this might be the 
wise and good man's reward, the consequence of pursuing virtue 
or perfection, but it was not to be the object of moral volition. 
Indeed, the good man showed his superiority by his indifference 
to it, by his ability to do without it. So careful was the Stoic to 
exclude pleasure from all consideration, even as an accident of 
virtue, that he maintained the ideal life to be one of tranquility 
(arapa^ia), freedom from excitement either of pleasure or 
pain, a life of- calm and repose, but always of composure and 
endurance, if pain was unavoidable, because it was not in its 
nature an evil. Pain was neither to be feared nor despised, any 
more than pleasure w T as to be desired. Both were to be treated 
as matters of indifference. 

In regard to wisdom or knowledge the Stoic does not remain 
on the Socratic platform. He does not regard knowledge as a 
good in itself: he considers it merely as a means to an end and 
so subordinates it entirely to practical and ethical purposes. 
This position is quite in the direction of the view that morality is 
a product of the will and not of the intellect. That is to say, the 
Stoics follow out the impulse given by Aristotle's distinction 
between intellectual and moral excellence, and make morality to 
consist in strength and activity of will. That mental character- 
istic of Socrates, of which he never seemed conscious, namely, 
strength of will, and which the Cynics exalted into a principle of 
Ethics, the Stoics came to regard as the fundamental characteristic 
of virtue as moral excellence, and as the only condition, on the 
-one hand, of adjustment to the world and its divine order, and 
on the other, of control over the influence of passion. In this 
view they practically emphasized the part played by the will and 
what we should call moral courage in the conception of the 
function of conscience. They admitted the strength of the 
emotions, instincts or passions, but urged the necessity of over- 
coming them by reason, if the law of nature was to be obeyed or 
respected. Though they thus laid the foundation, they did not 
develop a doctrine of conscience. 

Other aspects of the Stoic Ethics were natural consequences of 



42 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the main theory. For instance, the emphasis laid upon virtue as 
the good and its alliance with the will, led to the doctrine that 
the motive or intention was sufficient to sanctify conduct. This 
notion grew out of the distinction between perfect and imperfect 
duties, the former being absolute and the latter conditional. The 
only perfect duty, however, was the will or wish to do the good. 
This was an anticipation of the modern doctrine that virtue con- 
sists in " good- will." 

From this view, and the relation of the wise man to the course 
of nature, came the Stoic theory of determinism. They required 
of man absolute resignation to nature or God : he must think 
God's will better than his own will, " that there is only one way 
to happiness and independence, that of willing nothing except 
what is in the nature of things, and what will realize itself 
independently of our will." This determinism, however, only 
affected the external choice of man, not his internal disposition, 
which remained free. If the order of the world did not permit 
perfect freedom in the satisfaction of desire, it also did not pre- 
vent the good will from realizing the proper attitude of feeling 
toward that order, and herein consisted man's freedom. This 
distinction between man's internal and external freedom was a 
farther analysis of the ethical problem than Aristotle had 
attempted, and it especially expresses the conflict felt by a high 
moral consciousness between itself and the unbe'nding course of 
natural law and the hard social conditions of the time, though it 
also probably expresses a conflict between desire and what reason 
enjoins as a duty. At any rate, in their doctrine of modified 
determinism, we have the strong consciousness of the limitations 
upon man's power, and his duty to conform his will to them. The 
same doctrine appears more fully developed in later Christianity. 

One other doctrine has some interest, and this is the universal 
brotherhood of men, without distinction of nationality, which 
they founded on his common fatherhood. They did not, how- 
ever, disapprove of slavery, which would seem the natural con- 
sequence of their position. But this was probably due to several 
circumstances : First, a system of slavery which permitted of an 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 43 

Epictetus was not likely to be felt as an evil. Second, as internal 
freedom could not be affected by the servitude of the body, and 
was all that was in reality desirable, there was nothing to excite 
the opposition of the Stoic. Third, it was not equality for which 
the Stoics contended, but brotherly and harmonious relations 
between fellow-men, and they saw nothing in the nature of slavery, 
or the subjection of one man to another, inconsistent with this, 
especially as his own highest duty was to live in subjection to 
the universal law of nature. Slavery, therefore, could not appear 
as an evil to the Stoic. * 

The distinctive characteristics of Stoic morality may be 
summed up in the following paragraphs : First, morality is con- 
formity to nature or reason, whether we regard it in man or in 
the world. Second, virtue is the highest good, and this represents 
good will as the motive or attitude of reason, and perfection as 
the end. Third, wisdom is not an absolute good or end in itself, 
but a means to virtue, being thus subordinated wholly to practical 
purposes. Fourth,, the intention or motive is the essential 
element of morality. Fifth, man's freedom is limited to internal 
choice, his dependence upon the course of nature restricting the 
satisfaction of desire to the government of reason. Sixth, all 
men belong to the same brotherhood, and national boundries 
should give way to a federal life more after the type of the family. 

2. The Epicureans. — The philosophy of Epicurus and his 
school has three sources. Its physics and metaphysics originate 
in the atomism of Democritus, its negation of religion and 
theology in the scepticism of the Sophists, and its Ethics in 
the doctrine of the Cyrenaics. The three influences were welded 
together to form a compact and consistent whole. The one 
primary motive which seems to have dominated the school was 
the desire to overcome the sense of supernaturalism and religious 
fear, and thus to establish that mental calm and poise which 
were essential alike to the perception of truth, the performance 
of virtue and the attainment of happiness. Hence they resorted 
to purely physical explanations of things. Their materialism, 
this being embodied in the atomic theory, was designed to remove 



44 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

all belief in the causal interference of the divine in things, and 
with it the fear that kept men in subjection to arbitrary laws and 
prevented their free pursuit of pleasure. They rather inconsis- 
tently admitted the existence of the gods, but placed them in the 
intermundia, or interspaces of the world, where they could 
exercise no influence upon the course of it. For this reason 
there was no ground to fear their power to harm man or to 
interfere with the freedom of his life. 

Having emancipated the human will presumably from super- 
stition and fear of the gods, the next step was to determine the 
principles of morality, which were, of course, placed in the enjoy- 
ment of this liberty. As with the Socratic and Stoic schools the 
first thing . to settle was the highest good, and this they boldly 
made to be pleasure, thus adopting the ethic of ends as opposed 
to authority. But they did not accept sensual pleasure as ful- 
filling the terms of the problem though they conceived pleasure 
only in reference to sense. The distinction drawn by Plato and 
Aristotle, on the one hand between intellectual and sensuous 
pleasures, and on the other between pure and mixed pleasures, 
with the implied substitution of remote for momentary satisfac- 
tion, was not without its influence upon this school. For it made 
intellectual pleasure the type of good to be sought by the wise 
man, and made knowledge and self-control essential means to 
this end. Like the Stoics, therefore, thy subordinated knowledge 
to practical objects. This inclination went so far that they 
valued the study of physical phenomena only for their tendency 
to banish religion and superstition. No such interest as the 
Stoics displayed in science on its own account was maintained by 
the Epicureans. Scientific knowledge was estimated solely 
according to its utility, or power to contribute to a happy life. 
In this way the whole philosophy of the Epicureans was con- 
centrated in their morality. 

The first object, therefore, which the school had to determine 
was the highest good, the ultimate end of desire, to which every- 
thing else was subordinate as a means. 'This they uniformly 
made pleasure, though they were not always consistent in their 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 45 

assertions of what was to be regarded as pleasure. In one thing, 
however, they were unfailing and consistent, and this was their 
invariable denial of the Stoic formula which made virtue or ex- 
cellence the ultimate end. Hence they did not look upon virtue 
as something to be sought on its own account, but only on 
account of pleasure or happiness. They never conceived the 
two as separable. They agreed that virtue and happiness were 
invariably connected, but asserted that virtue was only a means 
to happiness, and not an end in itself. The Stoic had said that 
virtue or excellence was the end and happiness its consequence 
or concomitant, though not a means to it. On the other hand, 
the Epicurean asserted that virtue was only the means and hap- 
piness the end of conduct, and thus marked an irreconcilable 
opposition between the two points of view. The effect of this 
was to subordinate everything else in life to the pursuit of 
pleasure. "We have, then, in the school, the predecessors of 
modern Utilitarianism, at least in so far as happiness is taken as 
the criterion of what is right. The important difference between 
the ancient and modern form of the theory, however, is that the 
Epicureans were wholly egoistic, and modern Utilitarians are 
mainly altruistic in their conception of the matter. The differ- 
ence is also embodied in the opposition between Individualism 
and Socialism, the later being taken in the sense of voluntary 
co-operation to attain a common end. 

The main features of the Epicurean ethics are occupied like 
that of the Stoics, with a description of the wise man, a method 
that was unconscious testimony to the imperfectly developed 
condition of the general moral consciousness. This aside, how- 
ever, their conception of the wise man, drawn from the domi- 
nant spirit of the Socratic movement, was that of a person who 
successfully and prudently steered a middle course between 
passion and asceticism. His object was his own pleasure or 
happiness, and every arrangement of life, marriage, friends, 
political duties, personal habits, occupation, etc., were sacrificed, 
or at least made to bend, to this one aim. Though various 
members of the school did not always agree as to the form which 



46 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

this pleasure should take, some holding that it was sensuous and 
some intellectual, they were agreed that the end was pleasure 
rather than perfection, excellence or virtue. The agreement 
was still further made clear in the fact that the devotees of 
intellectual pleasure gave this an ultimate reference to' the 
sensuous. Their ideal of happiness comprehended the past and 
the future. Their intellectual pleasures, so far from being 
opposed to the sensuous, were merely the contemplation of past 
sensuous pleasures, the anticipation of future, and the regulation 
of life so as to sacrifice merely momentary to more remote and 
permanent pleasures. It was this that marked the advance of 
the school upon the Cyrenaics, and more especially determines 
the rational and reflective character of its system. "The 
Cyrenaic was a buoyant and self-reliant nature, who lived in the 
light of a grander day in Greece, and he plucked pleasures care- 
lessly and lightly from the trees in the garden of life as he 
passed through on his journey, without anxiety for the future 
or regret for the past. The sage of Epicureanism is a rational 
and reflective seeker for happiness, who balances the claims of 
each pleasure against the evils that may possibly ensue, and 
treads the path of enjoyment cautiously, as befits ' a sober reason 
which inquires diligently into the grounds of acting or refrain- 
ing from action, and which banishes those prejudices from which 
spring the chief perturbation of the soul.' " This peculiarity 
shows that the school had advanced beyond the most simple 
form of Hedonism and had discovered the necessity of some 
sacrifice, if only of the pleasures of the moment, in order to 
attain the ideal or greatest amount of happiness, though it re- 
quired the development of later ages to extend the idea of sacri- 
fice from that of the present for the future to that of personal for 
social good. The Epicureans, therefore, stand between pure and 
unreflective Egoism, and universalistic, or altruistic Hedonism. 
The concession made to self-sacrifice, however, was an unconscious 
one, and purely selfish in its nature, though it involved a train- 
ing of consciousness in habits of self-control which would be felt 
on life in a way probably not intended. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 47 

When the school came to define what it meant by happiness, it 
seems less removed from the views of preceding schools than is at 
first apparent. Pleasure was usually conceived as a positive and 
agreeable sensation or excitement of mind, "a motion" of the 
soul. But the Epicureans along with the Stoics deprecated the 
violence of those states which were so denominated, and regarded 
them rather as accompaniments of intemperate gratifications, and 
hence defined the happiness of the wise man as tranquillity or re- 
pose (at a patriot), indifference to passionate enjoyment, on the 
one hand, and to his destiny in the universe on the other. There 
is a touch of Stoicism in this attitude. But its ascetic character 
is eliminated by the fact the Epicurean thought the highest pleas- 
ures were obtained by securing the absence of pain, and thus he 
could still emphasize happiness as the most desirable condition for 
the pursuit of life. But even this repose did not suppress the 
interest in positive pleasures which were so much the object of 
praise and expectation that the development of the school lost 
sight of the limitations prescribed by the founder to legitimate 
excitement and became a by- word for voluptuousness. Its 
definition of happiness as repose did protect its tendencies against 
the reputation which history and tradition have ascribed to it ; 
while the motives to which it appealed, the particular ideals 
which it exalted, and the pleasures which it pursued, gave 
a coloring to the system which no paradoxes of definition 
could remove. Hence the school will always be known as 
the antithesis of Stoicism and the advocate of hedonistic 
Ethics. 

The summarized doctrine of the school is as follows : First, 
its interest in physical science and philosophic knowledge only as 
a means of eliminating superstition and of increasing the amount 
of happiness attainable in life. Second, its uncompromising 
antagonism to religious beliefs. Third, the doctrine that the 
highest good is pleasure to which virtue and all else are subor- 
dinated as means. Fourth, the distinction between intellectual 
and sensuous pleasures, not as different in kind, for ultimately all 
pleasures were the same, but as different in the mode and time of 



48 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

their ffcalization, the former having for their object the higher 
aesthetic enjoyments of life. 

The general development of the school was in the direction of 
scepticism and passed out with that intellectual movement. 
The decline of Greek civilization involved Epicureanism as one of 
its first victims, and there remained to continue the struggle for 
moral consciousness, only the Neo-Platonists whose thought and 
influence extended into the Christian period until Justinian 
closed the school of Athens in 529 A. d. From that time they 
were superseded by Christianity. 

3. The Neo-Platonists. — Neo-Platonism was a mixture of 
philosophy and religion ; the former being defective in scientific 
spirit and method and the latter in any definite notions of per- 
sonality. Its peculiar character is best described by calling it a 
system of theosophy, combining oriental theurgy and Hellenic 
naturalism ; that is to say, oriental mysticism, magic and myths 
were mingled, sometimes in a literal way, and sometimes allegor- 
ically, with the philosophic spirit of Greek thought, and a kind 
of spiritualistic pantheism was the outcome. We find this in 
Ammonius Saccas, Proclus, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Porphyry, 
Philo Judseus and others. The whole movement represented a 
completely ascetic retirement from the general spirit of Greek 
social and political activity though clinging to the intellectual 
ideals of its best days. The speculative or contemplative life, so 
much exalted by Plato and Aristotle, was developed out of 
all proportion to its proper place until it passed into the monks 
idolatry of seclusion from the world. In its first and -metaphys- 
ical impulse it was a search for the Absolute, and absolute knowl- 
edge. In this it was the foil of the scepticism which rivalled it 
for the conquest of the age, and represented the last, and perhaps 
despairing, effort to secure a foot-hold for truth. This Absolute 
was thought, the pure intuition of reason, which was the ultimate 
and common essence of all intelligence, no individual being more 
than an emanation from it — "a light sparkle floating in the 
ether of Deity " — and thus represented the unity of all things. 
It was, of course, above matter and endowed with divine attri- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 49 

butes, though no conceptions of man could adequately define it. 
They could only figuratively describe it, so that it remained 
perfect and divine, but incomprehensible, unspeakable and tran- 
scendent. 

It was this ineffable distance of the divine essence from man and 
the hopeless decay of Greek civilization that gave of them, the 
religious and the other, the ascetic tone of Neo-Platonic Ethics. 
Disappointment with the world made the Neo-Platonist a recluse, 
and the consciousness of the immeasurable distance of the divine, or 
the ideal vastly beyond the reach of sense and the imagination, 
made him a devotee. His philosophy was a bold idealism, the last 
refuge of the revolt against skepticism, and thus cutting himself 
off from the world, and aspiring to become what his reason told 
him Avas the highest object of hope and contemplation, his life 
became oneof ecstasy, a ceaseless contemplation of the absolute. 
Thus his Philosophy and Ethics were one, a belief and a religious 
absorption in the absolute. Its whole mood was, therefore, a 
religion, with the ineffable purity of God in front and man's 
imperfection in the background. There was no theory of moral- 
ity as we find it in the saner traditions of Greek life, but only 
moral and religious ecstasy, which we find reproduced or repre- 
sented in the monasticism of later times and in the oriental devo- 
tees of that and earlier periods. It was a mood that aimed at 
the purification of life from the carnality of the flesh. The 
material world and embodiment of the soul were despised and all 
the aspirations were directed to purifying the soul from its con- 
tact with the world. The system thus lent itself very readily to 
the presuppositions of Judaistic thought, connected with its sacri- 
ficial and ceremonial worship, and in this way influenced and 
was influenced by the movement embodied in Christianity. 
The ethical consciousness' turned away from the world to seek its 
object in the supersensual, contrary to the main trend of Greek 
life, and once more substituted the religious for the scientific 
mode of thought. This explains its ascetic character and shows 
why its ethical tendencies were not only subjective, but also of 
the contemplative rather than the active sort. It was emo- 



50 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

• 
tional rather than volitional, and took its coloring from 

metaphysical interests rather than from social conditions and 

aims. 

The main points which summarize Neo-Platonic teaching are 
as follows : First, a system of metaphysical absolutism arising 
as a revolt against scepticism. Second, a spirit of religious 
ecstasy which aimed at emancipation from the bonds of the flesh, 
or material existence. Third, an ascetic withdrawal from all 
social and political life as it then existed. Fourth, a conception 
of the complete contrast between the imperfections of man on the 
material side and the perfection of the divine, which could be 
overcome only by a ceaseless occupation with the divine. Thus 
the highest ethical aim becomes the apprehension of the divine. 
Reflection instead of action is consequently the form which its 
morality takes. 

77. MEDIEVAL ETHICS.— This movement of ethical re- 
flection may be said to begin with Christianity, though it more 
accurately describes the thought of the 9th and 15th centuries 
inclusively. But as the main impulse comes irom Christianity, 
the movement must be traced to that origin, with such elements 
as were imported into it from contact with Greek philosophy. 
The main characteristics of the whole period are the religious 
source and coloring of the moral consciousness, with the authority 
for its mandates in the divine will and revelation. Its object 
was man's redemption and the glory of God. The whole move- 
ment was conceived from the standpoint of man's relation to God 
and the hereafter, all immediately human affairs being subordin- 
ated to this. It rapidly developed a philosophy or theology 
and modified the purely religious features by speculative consid- 
erations, which also became complicated with the political and 
ecclesiastical interests of the age. Hence, we shall have to recog- 
nize three different periods of its development, characterizing 
the predominance of distinct elements in the system. These we 
shall call Primitive Christianity, Philosophic Christianity, and 
Ecclesiastical Christianity. Each one of these forms must be 
considered separately. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 51 

1st. Primitive Christianity. — This took its rise in the general 
social, moral and religious chaos reigning throughout Rome, 
Greece and Palestine. But, unlike Neo-Platonism, it did not 
counsel monastic withdrawal from the world ; nor did it return 
to the Platonic and Aristotelian system of direct participation in 
political life. It was at the outset neither a system of meta- 
physics about man's hopeless entanglement in the bonds of sense, 
nor a theory for the political regeneration of the age. It was 
rather a return to the better elements of Judaism and changed 
the method of regeneration from the reflective to the practical, on 
the one hand, and from the social 'to the individual, on the other. 
Greek thought expected moral and political redemption, the one 
from philosophy and the other from government. Christianity 
expected to realize both from the individual practice of religion 
and humanity, religion consisting in reverence for God's law and 
humanity in the treatment of fellow-men as brothers. 

The Founder of Christianity did not teach either a philosophy 
or a theology. Some assumptions, wholly Judaistic, were made 
about the existence and fatherhood of God, but no dogmas were 
propounded, and nothing like proof of either of them. He did 
not seem to have ever been aware that scepticism regarding 
them was possible. Hence he did not premise them as philoso- 
phic conditions of his doctrine, but proceeded to offer the world 
regeneration by changing the heart and will of the individual, 
He simply ignored every form of philosophy, whether Juda- 
istic or Hellenic, and more particularly the political hopes and 
ideals of his own race. He taught that each man was to be just 
to every other man, that all had a common father, and that they 
should live in peace with each other. The kingdom of God, 
which had been conceived as a political and ecclesiastical hier- 
archy, he taught was a condition of the individual heart and will, 
a feeling of human brotherhood, and so implied that whatever 
social advancement was attainable must be established by the 
moralization of the individual. The individual he sought to 
regenerate by awakening in him the springs of love to God and 
love to man, and this was to be effected hy giving his own life 



52 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS, 

and service to man and his welfare. Greek morality in both 
the theological and political stages appealed to fear as the means 
of affecting conduct, the founder of Christianity appealed to love, 
and expected thereby to moralize the will as well as conduct. It 
is this, the correlate of the idea of human brotherhood, that marks 
the contrast between Christian and Hellenic morality and so 
indicates the new principle which was to characterize the later 
moral consciousness. It was the first emphatic recognition, 
though not theoretically asserted, that morality is internal as well 
as external, that the good will is the only permanent guarantee 
of fight moral relations in the world. This teaching was especi- 
ally embodied in the " Sermon on the Mount," and abounds iu 
numerous maxims throughout the Gospels. It is summarized in 
a statement which rivals Kant's celebrated formula and contains 
essentially the same meaning : " Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do unto you, even so do ye unto them." The example, 
purity, and enthusiasm of the master soon attracted disciples, and 
the doctrine took an organized form. The master was looked upon 
as the Messiah who was to deliver his people from bondage and 
.restore the kingdom of Israel. The novelty of his doctrine con- 
sisted in the clearness with which he developed the teaching of 
the prophets while utilizing the national aspirations to give it 
force and power. His followers thus became imbued with his 
mission, and between moral insight into his doctrine and faith in 
his personality, they saw in him the long looked for Messiah. 
During his life, however, his disciples gave his person and teach- 
ing mainly a moral and a political meaning with a religious 
background. But the crisis of his crucifixion and death, with the 
disappointments which it brought, transformed the whole system 
into a religion pure and simple, with its morality subordinated to 
the end of spiritual rather than social regeneration. The burden 
of his original teaching rested upon two conceptions, the father- 
hood of God and the brotherhood of man, and represented the 
" kingdom of heaven" after the type of the family. But his death, 
without wholly changing the formula of his teaching, very greatly 
modified its meaning. First, Judaistic and then Hellenic con- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 53 

ceptions, floating in the common consciousness of the age, attached 
themselves to the fundamental propositions of the Christian church 
and gave its doctrine a new and deeper religious import. The 
Judaistic conception of the Messiah, as a savior of the nation, its 
doctrine of sacrifices, and of sin with its alienation from God com- 
bined to change the conception of man's relation to his creator. 
They added the idea of sovereignty to that of the fatherhood of 
God, and produced the doctrine of vicarious atonement for sin. 
These are especially prominent in the Gospel of St. John and the 
Epistles of St. Paul. The conception of the brotherhood of man 
remained unchanged. The disappointment at the failure to im- 
mediately realize the " kingdom of heaven " transformed that con- 
ception into an ideal paradisaic existence after death, and modi- 
fied the motive of righteousness by uniting individual interest with 
the injunctions of religion. Summarized, therefore, Christianity 
was from the outset a doctrine of salvation. Like Neo-Platonism 
it was for the salvation of the individual, but unlike the same 
system it involved distinctly Judaistic elements and expected to 
regenerate social life through this agency, reversing the traditions 
of Greek thought. This salvation took on an extended meaning 
when it was made to comprehend reconciliation with God as Well 
as man, and spiritual perfection in an existence beyond the grave. 
Man's moral consciousness was thus directed to the propitiation of 
his Maker, on the one hand, and to the duties which would se- 
cure him a blissful immortality on the other ; both of these con- 
ditions comprehended right relations with his fellows. In this 
way Christianity retained the strength of its original impulse. 

This primitive movement may be summarized in the following* 
conceptions. It is divided into two stages. First, a spiritual as 
opposed to the political conception of the Messiah. Second, the 
moral regeneration of the individual as the first step in social 
salvation, or the realization of " the kingdom of heaven." Third, 
the Judaistic doctrine of the fatherhood of God. Fourth, the 
extension of the brotherhood of man first beyond the limits of 
sects and classes, and then to comprehend all nations. Fifth, the 
inculcation of loTe in opposition to fear as the means to right 



54 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

conduct or the establishment of the right relations between differ- 
ent personalities, whether divine or human. This love took the 
form of " good will" to man (benevolence), and gratitude and 
reverence toward God (worship). The second stage involves 
some modification of the original conception. First, the 
sovereignty as well as the fatherhood of God. Second, a sense 
of sin or alienation from God. Third, salvation or recon- 
ciliation with God by means of vicarious atonement. Fourth, 
the immortality of the soul and the realization of "the 
kingdom of heaven" after death. 

The moral consciousness was profoundly transfigured by all of 
these ideas. Religious sentiment and philanthropic impulse com- 
bined to give a new motive to conduct and morality became an 
expression of personal character as well as conformity to law. It 
was intensely practical and in this respect was opposed to the 
speculative life of Hellenic thought. The second general period 
however modified this tendency. 

2d. Philosophic Christianity — Traces of this development 
are very distinct in the tendency to import philosophic Judaism 
into Christian doctrine. This is especially true of St. Paul's 
teaching, while both Hellenic and Judaistic elements are notice- 
able in the doctrines of St. John. The Pauline doctrine consisted 
of man's natural depravity, his alienation from God, sacrificial 
atonement, and justification by faith : the Johannine contribution 
was mainly the doctrine of the Logos, sacrificial atonement and 
brotherly love. The first two were the philosophical and the 
last the ethical element. The doctrine of the Logos was 
the Hellenic element introduced to rationalize Christianity, 
while the doctrine of atonement, both in Paul and John, was the 
Judaistic element introduced to maintain the continuity of 
revelation and providence. The sense of sin and alienation was 
common to Judaism and Neo-Platonism, though conceived in 
the former as a moral defect of man's will and in the latter as a 
natural consequence or imperfection of man's corporeal existence. 
Justification by faith was wholly a new doctrine and grew out of 
the personal relation between master and disciple. Faith at first 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 55 

was only a quality of will toward a person, or fidelity to person 
and principle. With St. Paul it began gradually to represent 
intellectual assent to doctrine. From this point it became the 
chief organ of Christian belief and life, as reason had been the 
organ of Greek thought. Christianity was called upon to justify 
its distinctive doctrines. The systems of St. John and St. Paul 
were attempts at this result. As Judaism declined and Grseco- 
Roman thought prevailed, philosophic tendencies increased their 
demands and influence, and the great conflict between religion and 
science began. On the one hand, Christianity insisted upon the 
truth of its distinctive religious beliefs, and in lieu of reason as a 
court of judgment was content with faith, while philosophy 
repudiated all that could not verify its credentials before the 
court of reason. This intellectual contest concerned the essential 
doctrines of Christianity as then understood, the Trinity, the 
atonement, the nature of God, the soul and its immortality, and 
the principles of salvation. Morality took the channel of 
charity and such Christian graces and virtues as represented the 
new order. But there was no special philosophy of Ethics. The 
moral consciousness was absorbed in reconciling itself with God 
and insuring its eternal welfare. A theory of social conduct 
and duties apart from salvation hereafter did not occupy its 
attention. The whole moral movement of Christianity had 
become absorbed in religious rites and philosophic reflection on 
its doctrines. But the conflict between reason and faith con- 
tinued to agitate the church until her political triumph over the 
Roman Empire. Even then it did not subside, but the method 
of dealing with the problem changed into a practical one. 

The summary of the main features of this second period, ex- 
tending down to about the ninth century, when a sort of truce 
between the two contending parties was concluded, is as follows : 
First, an attempt at the philosophic justification of Christianity 
and its essential doctrines. Second, the practice of morality with 
a direct reference to immortality. Third, the adoption of ascetic 
and monastic conceptions of life, in virtue of the need of redemp- 
tion. 



56 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

3d. Ecclesiastical Christianity. — The triumph, of the church 
and the downfall of Rome gave Christianity a new method. In 
fact, the reorganization of the state was made under the influence 
and domination of the church and is well called the Holy 
Roman Empire. Called to reconstruct social order out of chaos, 
the church lost no time in patching up a peace with the philosophic 
spirit, though it was accomplished partly by the fusion of reason 
and faith, and partly by the exercise of her imperial authority. 
Previous to her triumph the only influence to be relied upon for 
retaining the allegiance of her votaries was a moral and religious 
attachment to her doctrines. But when she began to wield eccle- 
siastical power and to control the civil authority, her influence 
was both changed and increased. When the contest between 
reason and faith again broke out, and reason threatened to dis- 
solve the speculative doctrines of the church, her ecclesiastical 
power was strong enough to decide the balance in favor of the 
authority of faith. Arrogating to herself the claim of being the 
sole repository of Christian tradition and truth, she was able to 
place the stamp of authority on her doctrines as well as her civil 
laws, and in lieu of the ultimate authority of reason, claimed by 
philosophy, substituted the infallibility and authority of her de- 
crees. The supreme guide of the individual, both in matters of 
truth and duty, of reason and conscience, was the councils of the 
church and her delegated agents. Under cover of this power her 
priests and councils regulated the beliefs and practices of her mem- 
bers down to the minutest details. Not only the rites and cere- 
monies of religious worship came under their jurisdiction, but also 
the rights and manner of secular employments. The confessional 
was the means of carrying out this policy and extended its au- 
thority into all the privacy and secrets of the family and of the 
individual heart. The confessional was a substitute for individ- 
ual conscience, and served as an ecclesiastical restraint upon per- 
sonal liberty precisely as the political system of Plato was 
calculated to produce. No man needed to be thejudge of his con- 
duct. His life was surrendered to the control of the church. His 
salvation, moral and religious, was in her hands. His duty was 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 57 

obedience to the appointed agents of the church. This insured his 
redemption. He had only to conform to the laws of the church, 
if he wished to be saved. In this way justification by works was 
substituted for justification by faith, and a vast system of purely 
external morality established in place of the love and good will 
which characterized the first impulse of Christianity. There was 
no theoretical system of Ethics apart from the scheme of salvation. 
Civil as well as religious duties were directed by the same end, 
and sanctioned by the same authority. The state was a part of 
the system of divine government looking to man's spiritual wel- 
fare and salvation, and all conduct was regulated with more or 
less reference to this end, and regulated by a hierarchical power 
that left nothing to individual initiation and freedom, except such 
as it was imprudent or dangerous to interfere with or disturb. 
The chief influence of this social, political and religious condi- 
tion of things, subject as it was to prelatical dictation and con- 
trol was to imbue the moral consciousness of the age with the sense 
and reverence for authority. This was a decidedly better moral 
condition than the fear of arbitrary power which dominated 
Greek civilization, because it insured greater stability for the 
social system and voluntary obedience to its laws. But it was, 
nevertheless, an attempt to determine morality from without in- 
stead of from within. It made virtue to consist wholly in ex- 
ternal conformity to law w T hile using the motive of religious 
reverence to enforce it, instead of relying upon the spontaneous 
choice of the individual will to determine merit. The determina- 
tion of the course of conduct, the method of salvation, was left to 
external authority, while the danger of resistance was overcome by 
inculcating reverence for it. This was the manner in which sal- 
vation by w T orks supplanted justification by faith, the inner prin- 
ciple of regeneration which w T as to Christianity what Kant's 
" good will " is to idealistic Ethics. Consequently the abandon- 
ment of that inner principle resulted in establishing a foreign 
authority over the will, and both the moral and religious con- 
sciousness became a dependency upon hierarchical decrees, though 
modified by the voluntary submission and respect which it paid 



58 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

to the assumed legitimacy of that power. Still morality sprang 
from authority and was independent of the intelligence and good 
will of the agent, except so far as respectful obedience determined 
his share in it. 

Side by side with this ecclesiastical system there developed 
occasionally a more correct view of morality, and one that was 
connected with the cultivation of philosophy. This appears first 
in Abelard (1079 — 1142 A. D.), who in many respects was the 
founder, but in respect to Ethics was the Nemesis, of scholasticism. 
The discussions about predestination, the sovereignty of God and 
the freedom of the will attracted much attention as affecting the 
conception of sin and responsibility. The upholder of the first 
two doctrines made sin to consist in the violation of the law with- 
out regard to the motive. But whatever was to be said of pre- 
destination and divine sovereignty, Abelard saw that personal 
merit and demerit depended upon the character and choice of the 
will. He therefore taught that virtue consists in the intention 
and not in the act. The theological point of view, as opposed to 
the naturalistic, is apparent in his conception of the highest good. 
The absolutely highest good, he considers, is God : for man, it is 
the love of God. The way that leads to the attainment of this 
good is virtue, which is a confirmed habit of will (bona in habitum 
so lid ata .voluntas). But it is in the motive or intention, not in 
the act per se, that merit and demerit reside. This intention 
depends upon the consciousness of the distinction between right 
and wrong. Hence Abelard lays some stress upon a doctrine of 
conscience, as opposed to objective and authoritative morality. 
Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas followed more or less 
in the same line and laid down principles which were resumed 
and developed in the Reformation. They were all basecl upon the 
freedom of the individual will and were the germs of the doctrine 
that finally dissolved scholasticism. 

The summary of this whole movement will contain the follow- 
ing elements. First, the final triumph of the church in its struggle 
with the state, and the establishment of an ecclesiastical system 
controlling the entire life and thought of the individual. Second, 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 59 

the continuance of the struggle between reason and faith after 
their temporary reconciliation until faith supplanted reason in the 
determination of dogma. Third, the regulation of individual 
conscience by authority, which was the necessary outcome of the 
civil power of the church. Fourth, the substitution of justifi- 
cation by works for justification by faith. Fifth, the spo- 
radic appearance of the more philosophic doctrine that vir- 
tue was internal rather than external, or the product of intention 
rather than purely formal obedience. It was the conflict between 
the last two ideas, along with the demand for secular and religious 
liberty as opposed to ecclesiastical authority that brought about 
the Reformation and the whole modern intellectual movement. 

Ill MODERN ETHICS.— The spirit of modern life repre- 
sents a reaction against religious and ecclesiastical authority and 
so is a return to naturalism, as it may be called. This tendency 
very profoundly affects Ethics, both theoretical and practical. It 
explains the desire on the part of many writers to emancipate 
morality from religion, and to emphasize secular as opposed to 
religious ideas. The movement is particularly a rejuvenation of 
Greek philosophy, though greatly modified in its spirit and con- 
tents by the influence of Christianity. The forces which repre- 
sent and contributed to it were the revival of literature, Coper- 
nican astronomy, the emancipation of Europe from papal dictation, 
Newtonian gravitation and scientific progress with all the later 
industrial, scientific and economic developments. Two early 
movements have not been included in this list, because in reality 
they represented the main impulses of the reaction. They were 
the religious and philosophic reformations. The first was headed 
by Luther and the second by Descartes. Both attacked the 
authority of the church, the one its authority over conscience and 
the other its authority over speculative reason. Descartes did not 
rush into open conflict with the church, but his philosophy w T as 
irreconcilable with its dogmatic method. Descartes' system was 
rationalism in philosophy, and Protestantism was the precursor of 
rationalism in theology. Both emancipated the human mind 
from authority, and placed individual reason upon its own respon- 



60 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

sibilities. Both declared principles that modified the direction 
and content of ethical reflection, though both retained the religious 
conception of its object. The philosophic movement divided into 
two main tendencies, the empirical and psychological of English 
thought, and the idealistic of continental thought. Each of them 
will be considered in an independent order. But we shall begin 
with the nature and influence of the Protestant Reformation. 

1st. The Theological Reformation. — The Protestant Reform- 
ation was the fruit of general intellectual", social and religious 
unrest, due to the tyranny and corruption of the papal' church- 
It was preceded and accompanied by those discoveries of Colum- 
bus, Copernicus, and Galileo, which widened the horizon of 
human knowledge, and overthrew the traditions of the past 
which were identified too closely with the interests of the church. 
These influences were in the direction of greater freedom of thought, 
but would have accomplished less than they did, had not the 
revolt of Protestantism secured a religious reformation, as 
science and philosophy secured the intellectual. But these are 
not the elements that connect Protestantism with the develop- 
ment of Ethics. These factors are comprehended in what the 
movement stood for as a revolt against ecclesiastic policy and 
authority. Protestantism represented two principles connected 
with the same end, the practical and the doctrinal. The first 
was the assertion of individual conscience against the moral cor- 
ruption of the church, the vices of the clergy, the sale of indul- 
gences, monastic disorders, and similar offences. The second 
and doctrinal reform was the correlate of the first, and was the 
reassertion of justification by faith. Both of these affected the 
problems of Ethics. The first substituted conscience for the 
authority of ecclesiastical power, and the second restored the 
original Christian position that moral regeneration is internal. 
This latter doctrine was the central and essential principle of 
Protestantism. What it meant for Ethics was the entire dis- 
placement of ecclesiastical authority, so laboriously established 
by scholasticism, and the substitution of the individual con- 
science in its place. In this salvation, temporal and eternal, 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 61 

was the result, not of works, but of faith. Man was brought by 
this course into direct communion with God through his own 
conscience and religious insight. He required no human inter- 
mediation, as the priestly practices of the period implied. His 
justification came by faith, the inner principle of the soul which 
is the spring of every regenerated will, because it is the surrender 
of the soul to God, and the perfections which he represents. 
But Protestantism did not abandon all that was contained in the 
idea of authority. So abrupt a course is hardly to be expected 
in any -age. It simply transferred the idea from the church to 
revelation, from human to divine agency. Kevolting against 
the papal system, it could not resort to a similar method for 
determining the ground of its own doctrines, and must perforce 
yield to the natural demands of the time for authority in 
support of its claims. This it sought for religion, in revelation, 
and for morality, in conscience, enlightened and governed by 
revelation. Here arose the distinction that has characterized 
the two separate, or supposably separate, fields of Ethics and 
religion, and later Rationalism took it up to concentrate its 
emphasis upon the former. Ethics came to represent duties to 
man, and religion duties to God. Conscience was the organ of 
morality, and faith the organ of religion with revelation as its 
guide. In neither case, however, did the new position succeed 
in eliminating older assumptions made to guarantee the dogmas 
of the church. The doctrine of infallibility and of the supreme 
authority of the church w T as the natural consequence of its sub- 
ordination of the civil power, on the one hand, and of its sup- 
pression of reason, on the other. In Protestantism it divided its 
jurisdiction. The infallibility and authority of revelation sup- 
planted that of the church and the pope, and was the warrant 
for religious truth, while the infallibility and authority of con- 
science was and is the survival in Ethics of the ecclesiastical 
doctrine in regard to the basis of both morality and religion. 
The foundation of morality and of salvation was thus shifted 
over to the subject of them, and the whole doctrine of religion 
made compatible with the idea of freedom, Avhether personal or 



62 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

political, and subsequent development in the direction of political 
and religious liberty was made possible. Justification by faith, 
therefore, was the source of modern individualism, so far as re- 
sponsibility is concerned, and as opposed to ecclesiastical author- 
ity and mediation ; discredited ritualism in religion, and deter- 
mined the modern doctrine of conscience with its conception of 
personality and character, or good will, as the most essential 
condition of morality. 

A brief summary of the influence of the Reformation will 
include the following points. First, the restoration of the inner 
and subjective principle of morality, due to the doctrine of justi- 
fication by faith. Second, the transfer of the idea of authority 
from the church to conscience and revelation. Third, the free- 
dom and responsibility of the individual for his moral and spirit- 
ual salvation, thus setting aside human mediation and influence 
from without. Fourth, the separation of morality and religion, 
at least in their sanctions and object, if not in regard to their 
source or ultimate. 

2d. The Philosophical Reformation. — The fundamental prin- 
ciple of the Cartesian philosophy, which was the original impulse 
of the philosophical reformation, was the same in its nature as 
that of the religious reformation. It was a revolt against dog- 
matic methods and authority, and the restoration of individual 
reason to its place in the determination of truth, with the impli- 
cation which it carried along with its method, that knowledge and 
virtue are subjectively conditioned, that is, have a mental source, 
whatever may be said of other influences. Descartes began with 
philosophic doubt of every assertion which could not appear as 
clear and distinct truth. To him clear and distinct ideas were 
either those which had an intuitive origin and were the con- 
ditions of all thought, or those which followed necessarily from 
admitted truths. He would accept no others than such as could 
present these credenitals. Hence he put to the severest test all 
beliefs about the existence of an external world, of matter, of a 
soul,- of God. He found that he could doubt everything but the 
fact of the doubt, the fact of consciousness, and in this he found 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 63 

necessarily implied his own existance. Hence the basal formula 
of his method and system was Cogito, ergo sum (I think or am 
conscious ; therefore I exist.) From this he developed his belief 
in the existence of God, of matter and of the soul. In thus sub- 
tracting, or thinking away everything except consciousness, 
Descartes laid the foundation of modern Idealism which assumes 
the subjective method of treating knowledge and a fortiori the 
phenomena of morality. It altered the point of view pre- 
dominent in scholasticism which asserted the principle of 
authority and permitted nothing to individual reason. Descartes 
emancipated the individual in philosophy as Luther did in 
religion, and so set up an internal principle as the criterion of 
truth. This reacted on the principles of Ethics and carried the 
idealistic impulse into that field until it terminated in the fully 
developed system of Kant and his school. 

When Descartes came to discuss ethical problems directly, he 
seeks first after the manner of Greek ethics to determine the 
highest good, which he finds to be virtue and happiness, or 
freedom and blessedness. He combines the ideal of the Stoics 
and the Epicureans. There is in this two systems of morality ; 
one empirical and determining the rules for the bodily life, 
rendering possible a control over the passions, and the other 
resting upon the good will and assuring the soul's independence 
and a spiritual felicity which depends upon the soul alone. This 
was carrying his dualism into Ethics. His doctrine of autom- 
atism, or the automatic nature of animal functions, prevented the 
success of this attempt, but it remained in Kant's view that 
pleasure is a necessary object of volition, and opposed the freedom 
of obedience to the sense of duty. 

Descartes maintained firmly the freedom of the will, and 
owing to his identification of judgment and the will carried the 
doctrine so far as to assert responsibility for our beliefs, to at 
least a limited extent. The supreme motive to morality he 
made the love of God, coinciding in this position with the relig- 
ious consciousness. He emphasized the limitations of nature 
imposed upon the human will and desires, and recommended as a 



04 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

duty the adjustment of our desires to its inflexible laws rather 
than an attempt to change the order of the world. Herein was 
the Stoic element of his doctrine, and it determined the prom- 
inent characteristics of Spinoza's Ethics. 

Descartes, however, had very little to say directly on the 
problem of ethics. He was most deeply interested in metaphysics 
and the theory of knowledge. His influence upon Ethics, 
therefore, was indirect and merely fortified by philosophic as- 
sumptions the general tendency of the reaction against scholas- 
ticism. Its chief influences were derived from the following : ' 
First, the establishment of consciousness as the ultimate criterion 
of truth and goodness. This was the assertion of reason, in 
opposition to authority, as the ground of knowledge and obliga- 
tion. Second, the founding of Idealism and its subjective 
method. Third, the maintenance of the freedom of the will. 
Fourth, the assertion that virtue or the good will has a moral 
value on its own account and not merely as a means to happi- 
ness, though this is its natural consequence. Fifth, submission 
and adjustment of desire to the necessary order of nature. 
Sixth, the love of God as the chief motive of conduct, or con- 
dition of mind in which to live. These several momenta in the 
Cartesian system will be apparent to all who study its develop- 
ment. 

In following now the subsequent development of ethical 
doctrine we can only select certain representatives of general 
schools. It is not necessary to detail the views of each 
author since we are not presenting a complete history of ethics. 
Hence we shall only outline the general direction of the main 
streams of thought, selecting for this purpose the Continental 
and the English movements, or the idealistic and the empirical 
schools, with their main representatives. 

3d. The Idealistic Movement. — The chief representatives of 
this school include Spinoza, Leibnitz and Kant, all that need 
consideration in ascertaining the nature of modern ethical 
problems. They are regarded as idealistic because they set up 
moral principles of a decidedly subjective character, and superior 



DEVELOPMENT- OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 65 

to mere physical naturalism, and develop Cartesianism to its 
logical consequences in the direction of idealistic methods. 
Omitting Malebranche, who is unimportant, we take up Spinoza. 
1. Spinoza. — Spinoza based his Ethics upon a thoroughly 
worked out system of metaphysics. In producing this he simply 
turned the dualism of Descartes into monism. Descartes held 
that there were two kinds of separate substances, mind and mat- 
ter, each without any participation in the nature or qualities of 
the other. Extension was the essence of matter, and conscious- 
ness the essence of mind. The independence of matter which 
characterized mind was a ground for maintaining the freedom of 
the will, because it was the subject of its own phenomena. The 
existence of God was asserted as an absolute substance and the 
creator of matter and mind. But Spinoza started by denying 
the substantial nature of mind and matter. He simply took their 
distinctive qualities, extension and thought, and made them the 
attributes of a single substance, God and dissolved dualism, by 
asserting pantheistic monism. The effect of this was to make 
man a mere mode of the Absolute, and so to destroy all possibil- 
ity of the freedom of the will. Hence, Spinoza denied this free- 
dom and maintained that man could not choose otherwise than 
he does on each particular occasion of choice. His actions are a 
mere product of the Absolute. From the same conception of 
dependence on God came the emphasis which Spinoza placed 
upon the limitations of the human will. The course of nature, 
according to him, is an inflexible one. It is a vast mechanism 
acting in accordance with laws which pay no regard to man's 
desires and ideals. Human nature is a part of this system, and 
human actions a result of it. Freedom is an illusion. Absolute 
good and evil do not exist. Praise and blame, as if the conduct 
of man could be otherwise than it is, are absurd. We must learn 
to be satisfied with the necessary course of nature. The highest 
good is a life according to this law of nature, which is also the 
law of reason. This Spinoza made "the intellectual love of 
God" (amor intellectualis Dei), or rational regard for the laws 
of the mechanical world, as it must be considered in his system. 



66 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

Man's duty consists iu freeing himself from the control of his 
passions, and his felicity comes from a reverent submission to his 
fate. How he can gain either of these ends is not clear from the 
principles of his system, and, moreover, it is hardly a misrepre- 
sentation to regard his " intellectual love of God " as mere sci- 
entific curiosity. It has the religious form of expression, but the 
materialistic pantheism of his philosophy, and the purely specu- 
lative interest of his thought eviscerate that formula of all its re- 
ligious import, and with the denial of free will there was nothing 
left but his own somewhat romantic and sublime character to 
adorn the theory. 

Spinoza's influence upon the main problems of theoretical 
Ethics was chiefly negative. He was among the first to boldly 
challenge the current conceptions of free will and responsibility. 
He could do so more effectively because, unlike scholastic the- 
ology, which had behind its denial of free will, at times, the per- 
sonality and grace of God, to rob the theory of its practical conse- 
quences, Spinoza, in spite of his pious phraseology, represents a 
purely materialistic conception of the universe, with man a mere 
mode of it, a bubble on a shoreless ocean of force, floating for a 
moment on its troubled surface, and disappearing forever at the 
touch of the first wind of change. His thought was the mechan- 
ical side of Cartesian philosophy, representing the scientific reac- 
tion against the spiritualistic character of mediaeval ideas, though 
expressed in mystical and religious language, and in this way 
brought to the front a complete antithesis to the benevolent and 
providential scheme of orthodox theology. Consequently, his 
influence upon ethical speculation and the practical moral con- 
sciousness, was to present inexorable limitations to the fulfill- 
ment of natural desires and the implacable laws of nature, to 
which man must adjust himself if he would attain felicity. Mod- 
ern evolution emphasizes the same conception, and no system, 
except Spinoza's, has so comprehensively stated the finitude and 
dependence of man upon the vast infinitude of forces which we 
call the world. The realization of this condition is the incentive 
to humility and obedience, which are the special virtues of Spin- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 67 

oza's thought, and which have especially recommended him to 
the scientific student. Hence, the calm, stoical composure with 
which Spinoza contemplated the laws of nature, and urged the 
control of passion in order to live in harmony with them. The 
moral consciousness which his pantheism and materialism pro- 
duced was one of submission to the inevitable, and represents 
the whole modern reaction against the supernatural. 

The elements of his system were as follows. — First, pantheistic 
monism with its reduction of man to a mode or phenomenon of 
the Absolute. Second, the denial of free will or the power of 
alternative choice. Third, man's highest good consists in his 
freedom from passion, or from desires that are in conflict with the 
order of nature. Fourth, the inculcation of that moral conscious- 
ness which humbly and obediently yields to the inexorable laws 
of nature. These principles exhibit a system quite in contrast 
with ordinary views and in particular are opposed to the ethics 
of Kant. 

2. Leibnitz. — The ethical doctrine of Leibnitz was a return to 
some of the fundamental positions abandoned by Spinoza, though 
intended to conciliate Spinoza's doctrine with the theological pre- 
sumptions of the age. Thus, Leibnitz retained monism as a phil- 
osophic Theory : but it was atomistic as opposed to pantheistic 
monism, and in this way he sustained a doctrine which made 
possible the freedom of the will. The fundamental unit of exist - 
tence was a monad, which he regarded as indivisible and perma- 
nent. It was distinguished from the Lucretian atom in that its 
nature was not material. Hence, Leibnitz regarded the basis of 
existence as immaterial. He asserted a difference between mo- 
nads, but it was a difference in degrees of activity. Their sub- 
stance was the same; their modes were different. Hence, a 
series of gradations, representing the law of continuity, existed 
between the unconscious, or so-called material monad and the 
conscious or spiritual monad. But it was the independent exist- 
ence of the monad and its power of self-activity without deter- 
mination from the influence of any other monad (Spinoza's freedom 
of the Absolute) that enabled Leibnitz to maintain the freedom of 



68 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the will. It was in this fundamental position that he differed so 
radically from his predecessor. He had his own special theory 
about the close relation between the lower and higher forms of 
volition, of the gradual development of rational activity from the 
instinctive, but he based his whole theory of morality upon the 
freedom of the will, which he saw was necessary, if Ethics was to 
be regarded as possible. He distinguished, however, between the 
freedom of indifference, or in determinism (equilibre), as it was 
called, and the freedom of determinism, which meant that the 
subject had a predominant inclination in one direction, though 
not fatally nor externally determined. Hence, Leibnitz denied 
both necessitarianism and the freedom of indifference and main- 
tained a theory of determinism which meant that volition was 
caused by the subject and that it was according to the law of the 
subject's nature. Thus he admitted the predominant tendencies 
of the individual's character while he affirmed free, original and 
spontaneous volition. This freedom he made to be action in con- 
formity with reason and in this way recognized the main conten- 
tion of Spinoza. 

When he came to consider the object of conduct he recognized 
happiness as the highest good. But this he seems at the same 
time to have regarded as the accompaniment of perfection. 
Pleasure, he said, is the feeling of perfection, pain, of imperfection. 
He sometimes speaks of happiness and perfection as if they were 
identical, or as if they together constituted the highest good. 
Instinct sought this as a natural object of volition, but reason 
only could seek it as a moral object ; because instinct was not a 
sure guide. It was confused and indistinct in its operation. His 
whole system also bore a close relation to his theory of optimism. 

3. Kant. — The philosophy of Immanuel Kant represents the 
confluence of two great streams of thought, those of Locke and 
Descartes. From Locke he obtained the empirical element of 
his system, which appears in the limitation of knowledge to 
experience, and from Descartes the idealistic basis which led to 
the assertion of the a priori conditions of experience, represented 
in the forms of perception (space and time) and the categories of 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 69 

the understanding (Quantity, Quality, Modality, and Relation). 
Thus he admitted " intuitive," " innate," " a priori," or underived 
principles of thought, though he confined them to the field of 
experience, and would not extend them beyond it. They were 
immanent in experience instead of 'transcending it. That is to say, 
whatever fundamental principles of truth were to be recognized, 
they were laws of thought rather than ideas distinct from sense 
deliverances whether inner or outer. But having made the 
forms of perception and the categories, or conditions of conscious- 
ness, subjective and ideal, he placed idealism upon a firmer and 
more radical footing than ever before, and so prepared the way 
for a more thorough-going idealism in Ethics. There were also 
subordinate contributions from different members of the same 
school tending in the same direction. Hume determined his 
scepticism in a large measure especially on the side of metaphysics, 
Berkeley had disputed the existence of matter, and Hume on the 
same grounds disputed that of mind, causality, personal iden- 
tity, etc., leaving nothing but "impressions," or experience, 
as the data of knowledge. Kant follows this up with . the 
distinction between nouinena, or things in themselves (Dinge an 
sicli) and phenomena, or appearances (JErscheimung) , asserting that 
the latter is all we know, while the former are unknowable, though 
asserted to exist. His scepticism thus applied to the nature of 
things, but not to their effect upon the ego or subject. 

No less striking was Hume's influence upon Kant's ethical 
doctrine. Hume had denied the connection of reason both with 
moral distinctions and with the motivation of the will, and 
affirmed it only of a " moral sense " which was a feeling or emo- 
tional function. This was subjective while reason was occupied 
with the objective. Farther, Hume denied that conduct, exter- 
nally considered, could have either merit or demerit, and thus 
taking up the non-moral character of all events and actions 
independent of the will, Kant was forced, like Hume, to place 
morality in the motive or condition of the will. The stoical 
spirit and severity of Spinoza are repeated in the rigidity of 
Kant's law of duty, though they were probably influenced less 



70 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

by Spinoza's philosophy than by the temperament and early 
training of Kant himself. The monistic and idealistic tendency 
of Kant were affected by both Spinoza and Leibnitz, though it 
was the outcome of the psychology of Leibnitz more than of the 
metaphysics of Spinoza. From Leibnitz also he probably drew 
the conceptions which aided him in sustaining the doctrine of 
freedom. But there were general tendencies acting in this 
direction by their antithesis to every doctrine of free will. 
These were the natural consequences of two movements, the 
scientific and the philosophical. On the one hand, the renais- 
sance had brought with it a strong admiration of the natural in 
Greek life, and Copernican astronomy and Newtonian gravita- 
tion had immensely extended the conception of physical laws, 
destroying the last traces of the ancient theory that the heavenly 
bodies were of a divine essence. The physical sciences had 
received large accessions in the discoveries of Pascal, Huyghens, 
Bernoulli, and others, so that the, sense of mystery was fast dis- 
appearing before the light of natural knowledge, and a sharply 
defined mechanical conception of the world was supplanting the 
spiritualistic theology of scholasticism: This was the purely 
scientific movement, and Kant shared in it to the extent that, 
simultaneously with La Place he outlined a nebular hypothesis 
to account for the origin of the solar system upon physical prin- 
ciples. On the other hand, Descartes stimulated by his interest 
in mathematics and mechanics, had reduced all phenomena of 
the universe, except those of consciousness, to mechanical laws, 
and included in them all the actions of organic life and the ani- 
mal world below the rational intelligence of man. Animals 
were-aXitomata and no more conscious in their actions than all 
unconscious beings. At least consciousness was not the cause of 
their actions. ^Consequently both the scientific and the philo- 
sophic movement had produced a widespread tendency toward 
materialism and its implications that all events were to be re- 
duced to invariable and mechanical laws. Leibnitz felt this, as 
we have seen, to the extent that he denied the freedom of indif- 
ference and admitted only a freedom that could be consistent 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 71 

with predominant inclinations in a given direction. Kant, 
therefore, came when he must either abandon Ethics to the 
physical sciences or vindicate the freedom of the will in order to 
save morality. This fact made that doctrine the key to his 
ethical theory, while its obverse side was found in the " cate- 
gorical imperative," which, as a fact of human consciousness was 
both the proof of freedom and the essential element of all moral- 
ity. These complimentary aspects of his doctrine, the categor- 
ical imperative and the freedom of the will, were attempts at 
correcting the dangerous tendencies of the age ; the former to 
represent a principle for regulating the lawlessness of the human 
will as it began to demand political freedom, and to stamp con- 
duct with the nobility of the ancient virtues practiced in sub- 
ordination to social welfare, and the latter to counteract the 
consequences of a mechanical and materialistic conception of the 
world. 

Starting with the ideas of duty and freedom Kant had to 
give his ethical system a firm foundation, and this was the 
more necessary because of the negative result of his Metaphysics. 
It was, in fact, this negative result that prompted him to the 
reconstruction of Ethics. Like Plato, the object of his philoso- 
phy centred in moral problems, but, unlike Plato, he did not 
seek their basis in Metaphysics. His dissatisfaction with the 
Leibnitzo-AVollfian dogmatism and the sceptical influence of 
Hume, taken with the general reaction against scholasticism, 
which had based everything upon theological and metaphysical 
assumptions, had induced him to analyze the fundamental con- 
ceptions of Ontology, Theology, and Psychology. In the Critique 
of Pure Reason, therefore, he denied the sufficiency of the argu- 
ments for the existence of God, the existence of the soul, and 
the freedom of the will. On these the previous systems of 
Ethics were founded, and hence, in order to avoid a dogmatic 
foundation for its principles, Kant saw no other way to treat 
the questions than to destroy the speculative foundations upon 
which scholasticism had built them. He resolved to reconstruct 
Ethics without any transcendental Metaphysics for its support. 



72 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

But having affirmed that reason was not adequate to the task of 
proving the speculative ideas of science and philosophy, he 
would seem to have cut off his return to a basis for morality. 
Nevertheless, Kant makes the effort by drawing a radical dis- 
tinction between two functions of reason, the theoretical or specu- 
lative, and the practical or postulative. Pure or speculative 
reason, he maintained, could not assure us of the fundamental 
principles of Ontology, Theology, and Psychology, though prac- 
tical reason might do so. This position was decidedly paradoxi- 
cal. It will appear less so, however, when we suppose that by 
pure or theoretical reason Kant meant the explanatory function 
of consciousness, which could not give an assurance of its objects 
as inexpugnable as the practical reason which postulated them 
as facts to account for phenomena, but did not pretend to inves- 
tigate their grounds. In spite of this, however, the distinction 
will always appear unsatisfactory, and gives rise to confusion. 
But its motive was an intelligible one, namely, to reconstruct 
Ethics independently of current metaphysical assumptions. ' Here 
began modern rationalism in Theology and Ethics, and with it 
the secularization of morality, or the separation of Ethics and re- 
ligion. 

After the destructive conclusions of the first part of his phi- 
losophy, Kant showed a double tendency in the reconstruction of 
Ethics. First, he had to indicate a function for establishing 
morality upon a basis independent of metaphysics ; second, his 
speculative interests induced him to postulate from practical 
reason the ideas rejected by speculative reason, but now asserted, 
not as conditions of morality, but as implications of it, or sup- 
plementary truths in which it culminated. The first of these 
gave morality a psychological ground, and the second compensated 
for the removal of its dependence on Metaphysics. Each of 
these aspects must be considered separately. 

The principle upon which Kant found a basis for Ethics was 
the distinction between the natural and the moral, and the 
denial that the latter could be deduced from the former. Hav- 
ing reduced all the phenomena of sense and of the understand- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 73 

ing ; that is, of nature and of consciousness, in so far as they 
were events objective to reason, to the law of causality or neces- 
sity, Kant's problem was to find a fact which could not be so 
reduced. He sought this in the categorical imperative, which 
was the ideal of practical reason, the declaration of what ought 
to be, as contrasted with what merely is. The natural sciences, 
including physics and empirical psychology, treated all events as 
the natural effect of causes which did not represent volition as 
the initiating antecedent, and hence were the product of neces- 
sity. They explain phenomena, and cannot legislate for the 
will. We cannot say that any event " ought "to be ; we can 
only say that it is, and that under the conditions it must be. 
But if the science of Ethics be possible we must be able to assert 
that some end ought to be realized ; some object must be uncon- 
ditionally commanded, and this can in no case be derived merely 
from the facts of observation. This desideratum Kant found in 
the sense of duty, or categorical imperative, which is uncondi- 
tionally binding, simply because it is an a priori product of 
practical reason. Hence Ethics is possible because it imposes a 
law, and does not explain facts. Morality is thus independent 
of the natural and necessary. 

Kant's next step was to formulate this law, which should be 
free from every element of experience. The first and purely 
formal statement of it was that "we should act so that the maxim 
of our conduct could be made a law for all rational beings ; " that 
is, a principle of universal legislation. This was his most gen- 
eral test for the character of any rule of action, and though it 
was merely negative in showing the suicidal nature of any prin- 
ciple which did not conform to it, the maxim was too abstract to 
satisfy all claims made upon a moral law. Hence Kant under- 
took to complete it by indicating the object to which the law 
was to be applied. It was not sufficient that action should be 
merely uniform, consistent, or according to law. The object 
concerned should also be taken into account. Purely formal 
obedience to it, which expressed the good will, might indicate 
the character of the agent, and satisfy all that could be de- 



74 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

manded of the law for the subject, but it did not suffice to sup- 
ply a complete criterion in the complexities of social life. 
Hence for more concrete purposes, Kant adds another concep- 
tion to the law, so that it will recognize the persons concerned in 
the exercise of volition. It then reads that the law of morality 
commands that we should treat man, whether in our own, or in the 
person of others, as an end in himself and not merely as a means. 
By this formula Kant can test all moral laws regarding person 
and property, so as to see whether they consist with the proper 
respect due to personality. At the same time this principle 
forces utility as a criterion into the background, though it does 
not antagonize it, and brings forward the good will as the only 
absolute value which Ethics can admit. This unconditional 
imperative, then, is equivalent to enjoining virtue for its own 
sake as it makes that quality to consist purely in formal obedi- 
ence to the law. At this stage of the problem Kant lays no 
stress upon the external end to be realized in morality. He does 
not seem to feel that the end is the important element in virtue, 
but that it consists only in the attitude of the mind or will toward 
whatever end it may choose ; that is, merely in the will to live 
according to the law of duty. Hence he wholly repudiates 
pleasure as a rational object of volition. He does not deny that 
pleasure is a good, he only denies that it is a moral good. It is 
the natural and necessary object of all volition, while a moral 
object must represent the free autonomy of the will. Hence 
though pleasure might be a material element in conduct it is 
not the object which constitutes its moral worth. This must be 
derived from conscientiousness, or as Kant expresses it, from 
formal obedience to the categorical imperative. Thus neither 
instinct nor desire, but only rational volition out of respect for 
moral law can constitute virtue. This is a quality which every 
one whether wise or ignorant could be expected to exhibit, and 
hence Kant could hold all persons up to the same degree of 
responsibility. With the utilitarian or hedonist knowledge is 
necessary to the right pursuit of pleasure, because this end is 
complicated with the various conditions of the physical world, 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 75 

while the good will is not affected by these circumstances and 
requires no special knowledge of nature to condition it. This 
position of Kant gave idealism complete control of the ethical 
problem by making it to consist in the determination of the will 
alone, which could act under the law of duty without regard to 
the amount of material knowledge possessed by the subject. 

This capacity of reason to act according to a law, to produce a 
categorical imperative, or sense of duty, was taken as proof of its 
capacity to obey the law, and this was its freedom. What Kant 
made clear in this view, was the fact that the consciousness of 
duty was absurd and anomalous, unless we could assume man's 
power to do what reason thus commanded. If man cannot do 
what his reason (conscience) tells him he ought to do, the sense 
of duty contradicts his nature, and he cannot be said to possess 
responsibility at all. In this way Kant sought to establish the 
fact of freedom. But the mechanical philosophy of the day, the 
Leibnitzian conception of predominant inclinations affecting the 
will, and Kant's own concessions to natural philosophy in his 
conceptions of mental phenomena, led him to assert a paradoxi- 
cal theory in regard to the will, which maintained, on the one 
side, the freedom, and on the other, the necessity of volition. 
Thus, Kant affirmed that phenomenally the will was determined, 
but noumenally, or as a thing in itself, it was free. In the anti- 
nomy regarding freedom, Kant found, as he thought, that he had 
to choose between the law of causation and freedom, and so he 
solved the problem by the distinction between things in them- 
selves and phenomena, holding that the will, in so far as it was a 
noumenon, was free, and not subject to the law of causality, but 
that in so far as it was a phenomenon it was not free, but deter- 
mined. Stripped of Kantian verbiage and technicalities this 
view can be made intelligible only by saying that volition (em- 
pirical will) as an event in time is determined and subject to the 
natural law of causation, but that the will (transcendental will) 
as a subject and not in time, is free and undetermined. Clumsy 
as his way of putting the matter was, nevertheless it had the 
merit, first of reinforcing common conviction in regard to the fact 



76 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

of freedom, and second of indicating* the source of philosophic 
illusion regarding it, in that he distinguished between the causal- 
ity of volitions as events and the ca'usality of the will as a sub- 
ject, the latter not falling in the series of phenomena which come 
under the law of causation. 

The second and supplementary aspect of his doctrine is quite 
as interesting, as an attempt to correct the excessively formal 
characteristic of the first part. Kant was aware of the rigorous 
and stoical demands upon the individual made by his doctrine 
of conscience, and though it was not so offensive as the severity 
of Spinoza's system with its pantheism and denial of immortality, 
it took away the concessions to happiness made by Leibnitz, 
admitted even by Spinoza, and recognized by the common con- 
sciousness of the age, and perhaps, of all ages, as too precious to 
be sacrificed to the logical necessities of a theory. Hence after 
apparently repudiating the connection of happiness with morality 
and certainly denying its importance as a measure of virtue, in 
order to prove that the formal law of duty was the essential 
element of moral goodness, Kant turns around and recognizes 
that happiness is properly connected with virtue. But he denies 
the identity of the two qualities of action, and so maintains that 
they are synthetically, not analytically, connected, to use his 
phraseology. The highest good he asserts is virtue, but it is 
necessarily united with happiness in the ideal or perfect state. 
But the imperfection of man and his present condition is the cir- 
cumstance that necessitates his dependence upon the purely 
formal nature of the law and gives rise to two postulates which 
the theoretical side of Kant's philosophy could not prove. They 
are the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. 

In the first place the moral law requires the union of virtue 
and happiness which can be realized only by perfect holiness, or 
perfect conformity of will to the law of duty. But man's imper- 
fection is such that the conflict between the demands of the law 
and his own love of happiness makes it necessary to have an 
indefinite time in order to sanctify his will. He can only realize 
a progressive approximation to perfection or holiness, and to 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 77 

attain this he must have' immortality. In the second place, 
since the moral law commands nothing but conformity to itself, 
and since at the same time there is a natural and necessary 
connection between the ideas of virtue and happiness, but not 
between their phenomenal reality, Kant asserts that the exist- 
ence of God is necessary in order to establish their real connec- 
tion in a more perfect state of existence. God is thus necessary 
to determine the harmony between morality and happiness. In 
this way Kant presented his celebrated moral, as opposed to the 
speculative, arguments for immortality and the existence of God. 
They were assumptions to complete the nature of morality, not 
the grounds or proof of it. Consequently in his system Ethics 
culminated in religion, but was not dependent upon it. This, of 
course, was intended as a conciliation of conflicting interests. 
Whatever it may have done in this directiou, or failed to do, it 
certainly preserved the integrity of the moral law without coming 
into open conflict with the religious consciousness, and fell into 
line with the spirit of the reformation. Kant's good will was the 
philosophic conception for Luther's justification by faith, if not in 
the relations it bore, certainly in the freedom which it implied, 
and in the recognition of personality which it asserted as opposed 
to the doctrine of external works. 

The summary of Kant's doctrine will contain the following 
contributions. First, the thoroughly idealistic character of his 
Ethics as compared with the half-way theories of the time. 
Second, the sceptical attitude of his philosophy toward meta- 
physics, which forces idealism into Ethics if morality is to be 
saved at all. Third, the doctrine that morality is based upon 
freedom and the [categorical imperative, the latter as a fact 
being a proof of the former. Fourth, the constitution of virtue 
in the free conformity of the will to duty, and without regard 
to happiness. Fifth, the postulation of immortality as a condi- 
tion of realizing the ideal connection between virtue and happi- 
ness, since it requires an indefinite time for its achievement. 
Sixth, the postulation of God's existence as a condition of main- 
taining the harmony between morality and happiness. 



78 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

For the sake of understanding the modern problems of Ethics 
it is not necessary to pursue the history of the idealistic move- 
ment any farther. It attains its maturity in Kant, as a purely 
subjective doctrine. Later developments only eliminate its 
difficulties and inconsistencies while asserting that the essential 
principle of virtue, so far as it represents character as distinct 
from external conduct, must be found in the quality of will and 
conscientiousness which Kant's categorical imperative embodied. 
Kant developed to its highest pitch the importance of the 
motive to morality, and did so to the extent that he apparently 
ignored the value of the material end, or the inevitableness of 
the tendency to use pleasure as a criterion of good conduct. 
Hence, the purely idealistic movement, which was independent 
of genetic theories on the one hand, and of endsemonistic doc- 
trines on the other, may be said to have culminated in Kant. 
We may, therefore, turn to the empirical school and its contri- 
butions. 

4th. The English Movement. — This whole school is charac- 
terized by the historical method, though it is divided into two 
opposing tendencies, the empirical and the intuitive. It is not 
necessary, however, to follow each tendency throughout its de- 
velopment. It is sufficient to know for what they stand. The 
empirical school maintained and maintains that all moral con- 
ceptions are derived from experience, or from associations of 
pleasure and pain with certain forms of conduct, and it is 
usually identified with the position of Utilitarianism, that hap- 
piness is the only good. The intuitive school maintained that 
the principles of morality are implanted in the constitution of 
human nature, and are not the product of mere experience. 
This school was sometimes identified with the doctrine of Utili- 
tarianism, and sometimes it was not. Its main tenet was the 
original as opposed to the derived nature of morality. It also 
subdivides into the intellectual and the cesthetic or moral-sense 
school. 

1. The Empiricists. — This school comprises the earlier and 
the later forms. The earlier is represented by Hobbes and Locke, 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 79 

the latter by Bentham, Mill, and Spencer, with men of minor 
note. Hobbes and Locke, however, are all that Ave can consider 
for the present, in giving the historical development of the ethi- 
cal problem. Both gave a very considerable impulse to the em- 
pirical movement, though their influence was not the same in its 
nature. 

The chief feature of Hobbes' philosophy was its political doc- 
trine. But it contained a theory of right which was not only 
founded upon pleasure, but also represented conventionalism in a 
peculiarly offensive form. His system started in a materialistic 
psychology, but its strength did not lie in that fact. Its impor- 
tance came from the particularly pessimistic view which he took 
of human nature, and the means necessary to secure social order. 
Men in a state of nature, he maintained, were in a state of war. 
Every man was against every other man (Jiomo homini lupus'), 
and each pursued his own interests without any restraints, except 
such as the fear of a stronger availed to produce. Selfishness is 
the only primitive spring to conduct, and pleasure its only object. 
There is no such a thing as social instinct moving men to seek a 
general good. They are solely under the influence of individual 
interest, and being in perpetual conflict could succeed only in 
maintaining -a state of anarchy. In this condition, might and 
right coincide, and no man has any rights .or duties. These are 
purely the product of social organization, which Hobbes main- 
tains must be brought about either by compact or by conquest. 
Either alternative involves the necessity of absolute obedience to 
a sovereign who becomes the state for all practical purposes. 
" The sovereign is itself bound by the Law of, Nature to seek 
the good of the people, which cannot be separated from its own 
good, but it is responsible to God alone for its observance of these 
laws. Its commands are the final measure of right and wrong 
for the outward conduct of its subjects, and ought to be absolutely 
obeyed by every one so long as it affords him protection, and 
does not threaten serious harm to him personally ; since to dis- 
pute its dictates would be the first step towards anarchy, the one 
paramount peril outweighing all particular defects in legislation 



80 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

and administration." * Hobbes carried the doctrine of absolute 
obedience so far as to affirm that, if the sovereign declared 
Mohammedanism or any other faith to be the state religion, it 
was .the duty of the subject to obey. Though he alludes 
to the Law of Nature as binding upon the sovereign, he means 
by this the law of self-preservation, and not any social tendency 
of men, or love of their fellows. Consequently, his system con- 
fers as absolute power as could be imagined, over the character of 
what shall be called right. The doctrine coincided at the time 
with the interest of the monarchical party in England, and was 
supported by the conservatives against the liberal tendencies of 
the Puritans, whose doctrine of individual responsibility to con- 
science was especially offensive to Hobbes. His theory greatly 
influenced public sentiment, on the doctrine of the " divine right 
of kings," or at least gave it the support of philosophic authority, 
and so had the double effect of reinforcing the reaction toward 
external authority as the guide of conduct, and of giving moral- 
ity more of a conventional character than the orthodox mind of 
the age was willing to admit. Though the school which Hobbes 
heads did not accept the radically despotic doctrine that the 
sovereign could be the source of moral law, it turned the general 
principle of his system to account in explaining the influence ex- 
erted by jurisprudence in establishing social customs, and so in 
giving form to the general conscience. The boldness and revo- 
lutionary character of the doctrine was the agency which revived 
ethical speculation, as can be seen in both the intellectual and 
the aesthetic schools, which endeavored to refute both the con- 
ventional and the egoistic features of his theory. Also its in- 
fluence can be traced in the doctrines of Bain and Spencer, that 
conscience originates, at least partly, in political authority and 
restraints. The essential feature of the theory, however, was that 
morality can be the creation of will in which Hobbes restored the 
theological doctrine without the religious reverence that gave it 
both force and ideality. It became a political instrument in the 
hands of arbitrary power, precisely as Sophistic doctrine became 
* Sidgwick, History of Ethics, p. 165. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 81 

in the hands of the Thirty Tyrants. The reaction which came 
in the intellectual and moral sense schools measured the extent 
of both the repugnance and the dangers of Hobbes' doctrine. 

Locke did not exactly follow the lines of Hobbes' speculations. 
The author of the celebrated treatise on Toleration could hardly 
have consented to any form of absolutism, and hence his sympa- 
thies with individual liberty would incline him to take another 
view more consistent with natural rights. But he nevertheless 
gave the empirical movement quite as strong, if not a stronger, 
impulse than Hobbes, though he did it from another standpoint, 
and without involving his theory in the meshes of practical poli- 
tics. This he did by his general theory of knowledge whose fun- 
damental principle was experience as opposed alike to authority 
and to intuition. Locke denied the existence of " innate ideas," 
both speculative and practical. All theoretical ideas he derived 
from sensation and reflection, meaning by these external and 
internal perception : all practical ideas, or moral maxims he 
derived from experiences in pleasure and pain. What Locke 
really called attention to was the fact that moral principles are 
abstract and complex instead of being simple, and hence require 
to be reduced to their concrete elements, which he found to be 
pleasure and pain. Others had emphasized the influence of 
these phenomena as well as he, but they did not mean thereby 
to antagonize a doctrine of natural and inborn morality. 
Hence the peculiar characteristic of Locke's position was that 
he used the fact to prove the purely experiential character of 
moral principles, and ever since his time the hedonistic theory 
has been identified with the endeavor to develop, ethical maxims 
from the pursuit of ends which in themselves did not contain 
the peculiar quality which is generally expressed by morality or 
virtue. 

2. The Intellectualists. — This school comprises Cud- 
worth, Cumberland, Price, and Clarke. The common characteris- 
tic of it is its hostility to the conventionalism of Hobbes on the one 
hand, and to the experientialism of Locke on the other. Hobbes 
had founded morality upon the will and Locke upon the 



82 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

emotions. The intellectualists rejected these sources and referred 
moral principles to reason, and made them constitutional to it. 
They were influenced by the traditional doctrine that conscience 
was mainly intellectual in its character, and so attempted to 
reconstruct Ethics upon that basis. 

Cudworth's contribution to the problem was his Treatise con- 
cerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. This title is a suf- 
ficient indication of the position which he took, as against the 
theory of Hobbes. He denied the origin of morality, or moral 
distinctions, in will of any kind, whether divine or human, and 
asserted that it was a part of the eternal nature of things. This 
moral law was an object of reason and not of feeling. But what 
is interesting in his view is its thoroughly metaphysical and 
objective character. It is very far removed from the idealistic 
doctrine in that it founds morality in the nature of things rather 
than in the nature of mind, and thus can set up an objective set 
of relations as cognita of reason rather than either products of 
arbitrary power or reflexes of sense and feeling. 

Cumberland expounded his philosophy in a work entitled De 
Legibus Naturce, which was designed as an attack on Hobbes, 
and in which he asserted that the laws of nature were represented 
by "immutably true propositions, regulative of voluntary 
actions as to the choice of good and the avoidance of evil, and 
which carry with them an obligation to outward acts of obedi- 
ence, even apart from civil laws and from any considerations of 
compacts constituting governments." Civil law can be nothing 
but an effective means of enforcing the laws of nature. All 
these laws of nature he thought could be comprehended under 
one general principle — the law of benevolence — the obligation to 
promote the happiness of all rational agents. Thus his position 
is a double reply to Hobbes. The assertion of a law of nature was 
opposed to Hobbes' conventionalism and the recognition of be- 
nevolence as the basis of this law was opposed to the egoistic 
individualism of Hobbes. 

Clarke takes the same general view that the sanctions of mo- 
rality are independent of legislations either divine or human, and 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 83 

in regard to their self-evidence compares them to mathematical 
truths which were generally admitted to be intuitive. Price also 
presses the self-evidence of moral truths and asserts that the 
ideas of right and wrong, ought, duty, etc., are simple notions 
incapable of definition or analysis, thereby disputing the conse- 
quences of Locke's doctrine. 

3. The Esthetic or Moral Sense School. — This school 
comprises Hutcheson, Shaftesbury, and Hume, with some others 
of less important note. They represent a tendency to combat 
equally the conventionalism of Hobbes, the empiricism of Locke, 
and the rationalism of the intellectualists. They agree in main- 
taining the existence of a moral sense whose function it is to per- 
ceive what is right and wrong per se, as opposed to mere obedi- 
ence to law from the motive of self-interest. On the other hand, 
its object was not a relation of things as in the intellectual 
school, but was a relation of men ; that is, universal happiness. 
The fundamental principle of moral sense was sympathy or 
social instinct. Thus there was a double opposition to Hobbes. 
First, in so far as moral sense was an endowment of the individual 
it was opposed both to Locke's empiricism and to Hobbes' con- 
ventionalism. Second, in so far as it represented social instinct it 
opposed Hobbes' egoism. Again, in so far as it was a sense as 
opposed to reason and with its object in happiness the doctrine 
combatted the pure rationalism of the intellectualists, and 
represents the tendency toward the hedonistic and utilitarian 
doctrine of later times. 

Shaftesbury published his views in a work entitled An 
Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit, in which he attacked the 
egoistic interpretations of the good by asserting the naturalness of 
the social affections. He uses the term moral sense to describe 
their general function and admits an element of judgment 
or reason in it. But he placed more emphasis upon the felicific 
character of its object and the universality of its existence so as 
to show the social nature of morality. 

Hutcheson emphasizes the view that the moral sense has had 
no growth or history, but is a natural endowment of man. It 



84 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

is mainly of the nature of the affections and represents the 
approval of right and the disapproval of wrong actions. Sym- 
pathy or disinterested affection is the mainspring of virtuous 
conduct, and reason plays only a subordinate part in its 
functions. He wholly denies the moral character of self-love, 
though admitting its harmony with benevolence. This prepared 
him for the admissions of the scholastic distinction between 
formal and material goodness. An act was formally good, 
he held, when it sprang from benevolent affection, and " mate- 
rially good when it tends to the interest of the system, whatever 
the affections of the agent." This is an anticipation of one 
feature of Kant and a preparation for Hume's doctrine. 

Hume developed the moral-sense theory to its utmost degree 
of perfection, and the elaborate analysis which he gave the 
ethical problem makes his system worthy of a careful, though 
brief, discussion. In the first place, he began with a completely 
sceptical system of metaphysics, discrediting the dogmatic and 
theological doctrine in regard to the existence of mind and 
matter. But when he came to Ethics his scepticism seems to 
play no special part in his theory. There was no reason that 
it should do so because he opposed the idea that morality 
Represented anything in the nature of phenomena independent 
of the will. He founds his Ethics, however, upon the psycho- 
logical classification of phenomena into impressions and ideas. 
The former represent the objects of sense, including the feelings 
of pleasure and pain ; the latter represent objects of the under- 
standing or reason, and so denote relations of things. His 
starting point, therefore, is the denial that moral distinctions are 
produced by reason. " Reason," he held, " is the discovery of 
truth or falsehood," and not of the praiseworthy or blame- 
worthy. It deals with matters of fact and relations of ideas, and 
so with objects and relations not determined by consciousness. 
On the other hand, morality is wholly an affair of the will and 
the affections. Its function is the distribution of praise and 
blame, and its object pleasure and pain. Thus it had to deal 
with the emotions. Hence he wholly denied the position of 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 85 

Cudworth and the Cambridge Platonists, that right and wrong 
represented aii) T thing in the nature of things apart from con- 
sciousness and the will. Hume emphasized his denial of the 
intellectualist doctrine by showing that the same effects pro- 
duced by inanimate and irrational beings were not adjudged as 
either moral or immoral. Actions must be caused by a will to 
have moral quality. But since this quality cannot be found in 
the nature of things, the objective relations of phenomena, it 
must be found in the motive. Here is idealism pure and simple ; 
only Hume refuses to attach merit to the " sense of morality," 
or duty as a motive. This merit must come from some natural 
affection of the soul other than reason or the sense of duty. 
The way is prepared here for Kant's good- will, though it is not 
qualified in the same way. Hume thus refutes the intellectual- 
ists while maintaining the ultimately natural character of moral 
distinctions. But he falls into line with the hedonists in making 
pleasure the end of action, and partly w T ith Hobbes in his 
doctrine of the conventional though not arbitrary nature of 
justice. Having maintained that virtue and justice do not 
represent any relation in things apart from will and that justice 
cannot exist until a social order has been established, he pro- 
ceeds to show that it is wholly dependent upon the contract or 
compact that introduces that order. Justice is thus artificial 
and also the obligation which it originates. The convention, 
however, on which justice rests is not arbitrary, but expresses 
the natural agreement of men, formed by their social instincts, 
to establish society, and to maintain security of life and property. 
Sympathy is the bond which holds the social organism together. 
But in spite of this view Hume agreed with Hobbes in making 
"self-interest the original motive to the establishment of justice, 
but sympathy with public interest is the source of the moral 
approbation which attends that virtue." In the latter aspect he 
therefore falls into line with Hutcheson and Shaftesbury. But 
in so far as he made virtue and justice in the social order a pro- 
duct of convention and the sense of duty the result of the same, 
he combined the doctrines of Hobbes and Locke, and laid the 



86 r ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

foundation of modern empiricism, as represented in Bain and 
Spencer, and evolutionists generally. But he stands midway 
between them and Kant in the fact that his moral sense is a 
natural foundation upon which experience and convention had 
to build. On the one hand, Hume anticipated idealism in 
showing that morality was not a quality of external events, and 
that it was constituted solely by the motive, or disposition of 
will, though he made its object pleasure. On the other hand, he 
outlined empiricism by declaring for the conventional nature of 
justice, of conscience, and all rules affecting the security of life 
and property. But when taken in all its phases his system will 
be found to reflect the principles of several schools, marking the 
transition to more modern doctrines. The summary of his views 
will bring out this character of his system. We may state this 
as follows : 

First, Hume denies the rationalism of Cudworth and the 
intellectualists. Second, he limits the object matter of morality 
to the feelings or emotions. Third, he asserts a doctrine of 
moral sense which contradicts both Hobbes and Locke. Fourth, 
since morality cannot consist in a law or relation of things, ex- 
ternal events, it must consist wholly in motive. Fifth, the 
motive which determines the quality of virtue is something other 
than the " sense of its morality," and must be some natural affec- 
tion. Sixth, the conventional nature of the social organism gives 
an artificial though not an arbitrary nature to justice. Seventh, 
though personal interest originates this convention sympathy is 
the influence which seals it and determines the feeling of appro- 
bation. Eighth, conscience, or the "sense of morality," is a 
product of social convention and represents a purely cognitive, 
not a motive, function in the determination of morality. Ninth, 
pleasure or utility is the object of all action and the criterion of 
its goodness. 

4. Conclusion. — It is not necessary to follow the history 
of English ethical problems beyond Hume, farther than to re- 
mark that his doctrine may be the starting point of several 
opposing systems. On the one hand, the emphasis of one of his 



DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 87 

principles terminates in Kant ; the development of another pro- 
duces Bentham and Mill. The last two made pleasure the sole 
criterion of morality, Bentham, however, holding that pleasures 
differ only in quantity or degree, and Mill that they differ in 
quality or kind as well as in quantity. Another aspect of 
Hume's theory anticipates the main position of evolution, 
while the many elements taken, together and harmonized might 
originate a complete syncretistic or eclectic theory of morality. 
He touched upon all the main problems of modern ethics and 
suggests the attitudes which may be taken regarding them. 
From his time they become progressively complex as the 
analysis of their various elements proceeds, and represent the 
questions which the moralist of the present has to meet. What 
they are we may best illustrate by a careful summary, which 
shall outline for us the many problems we have to discuss in the 
present work. The following, therefore, will represent the ques- 
tions to be considered in the modern science of Ethics : 

First, there is the ultimate or highest good, or the question 
regarding the ultimate end of conduct, whether it is pleasure or 
perfection, or both, or some other more defensible object. Sub- 
ordinate to this problem is the one regarding what men do seek, 
and what they ought to seek, if obligation be possible. Second, 
there is the question regarding ivhat is right or moral after the 
end has been determined, since the right has to do with the 
means to the end. The question why it is right also comes in as 
a problem, but it is identical with the first-mentioned case. 
Third, there is the question regarding the metaphysical basis of 
Ethics, including the theological problems of God's existence, 
his nature, and the relation of his will to the moral law. 
Fourth, there is the question regarding the relation of moral law 
to external authority, whether divine or human, and which in- 
volves the question whether it is conventional or natural. Fifth, 
there is the question in regard both to the nature and the origin 
of conscience ; whether it is simple or complex, and whether it is 
original, and implanted, or acquired and developed. Sixth, there 
is farther the question as to the authority of conscience, its falli- 



88 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

bility or infallibility. This problem, however, is a receding echo 
of scholasticism. Seventh, there is the problem of the freedom 
of the will and responsibility, involving the question as to the 
causes of conduct, man's relation to environment and to his an- 
cestors, or the influences in time and space which may be sup- 
posed to impose limitations upon his will. Eighth, there are the 
various specific theories of Ethics combining these several prob- 
lems in different ways. Ninth, there is the question regarding 
the nature of virtue or moral goodness, whether it consists in a 
quality of will, or a quality of conduct, or both. Tenth, there ■ 
is the question of the relation of motives to conduct, (a) whether 
they are causes of it or mere concomitants, and (6) whether they 
are elements determining its ethical character or not. Eleventh, 
there are the specific problems of practical Ethics concerning 
the nature, obligation, and limits of the various virtues, such as 
veracity, justice, chastity, etc. There are numerous other ques- 
tions which might be stated, but they are either less important 
than those we have mentioned, or they are subordinate aspects 
of more general problems. But such as have been enumerated 
indicate how complex the ethical question has become in the 
process of development, and how careful must be the analysis if 
we expect to give it any adequate answer. 

References. — Sidgwick : History of Ethics ; Erdmann : History of Phi- 
losophy ; Ueberweg : History of Philosophy ; Kuno Fischer : Geschichte 
der Neueren Philosophic ; Wundt : Ethik ; Ziegler : Christliche Ethik ; 
Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory ; Jodl : Geschichte der Ethik ; Win- 
delband : Geschichte der Philosophic ; Falckenberg : History of Phi- 
losophy (Translation by A. C. Armstrong) ; Schwegler : History of Philos- 
ophy (Translation by J. H. Stirling). See also articles in the Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica under the appropriate names and subjects. 



CHAPTER III. 

ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 

J. INTRODUCTORY.— We have found that Ethics as a science 
investigates questions concerning right and wrong, man's moral 
nature, and the ultimate end of conduct, and that it is especially 
interested in the ground and validity of the various moral rules 
imposed by society and conscience upon the individual to reg- 
ulate his behavior. These questions can, perhaps, be reduced to 
three or four different forms. The first is whether there is any 
duty, virtue, morality, or obligation at all. The second is, why 
such and such rules are made obligatory, conditionally or 
unconditionally, or what are the grounds upon which moral 
obligation rests. The third is, how we come to know what 
is moral. This is the problem of the origin and development of 
moral consciousness. The fourth concerns the application of 
moral rules to practical life, or the conditions under which they 
may be held to be valid. It is the second and the third ques- 
tions, however, that occupy the largest portion of the field 
of theoretical Ethics, and to them we shall have to give most of 
our attention in the first part of this treatise. The answer to the 
first question is an answer to scepticism and can be made easy or 
difficult according as we simplify or confuse our problems. In 
one sense it is only a matter regarding the meaning of terms as 
to whether there is any such thing as morality ; that is, it 
is merely a question of fact which any normal consciousness 
can settle for itself. On the other hand, and in another sense, it 
is a question involving the meaning, contents, and theory of 
morality. For that reason it may involve the whole problem, 
and can be adequately answered only in the sequel of the 
discussion. 



90 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

Again, there is so much equivocation and confusion in regard 
to the nature of ethical conceptions and the theories of them, that 
general questions can be intelligently discussed only after the 
fundamental terms have been clearly defined and the various 
moral phenomena of consciousness analyzed. In fact, nearly all 
the disputes of Ethics turn upon a misunderstanding of the 
terms and point of view involved. They are assumed to be sim- 
ple and uniform in their import, but are in fact extremely com- 
plex and variable in their application. For that reason it 
is exceedingly important to clearly define the various applications 
of fundamental terms and indicate their relation to the different 
aspects of the ethical problem. These terms are virtue, vice, 
good, bad, moral, immoral, right, wrong, duty, obligation, and 
allied conceptions. We may forestall much useless controversy 
by first indicating the illusions to which we are liable in using 
them without being conscious of their equivocal import. 

II DEFINITION OF TERMS— The different schools of Ethics 
are very much affected by the conceptions they hold of the 
terms lying at the basis of moral reflection. Their antagonisms 
also are influenced by the different meanings involved and might 
be removed by the precautions which analysis and definition 
may establish. Thus one school makes virtue, as we have seen, 
the highest good, and so regards it as an ultimate end of con- 
duct ; another school does not see how virtue can be an end at 
all, and conceives it as describing the merit of certain means to 
an end which it may call pleasure, perfection, or something else. 
If the terms have more than one meaning there is no necessary 
conflict between the two modes of thought ; otherwise they 
must disagree. It is the same with other important conceptions, 
and hence their various denotations must be carefully examined. 

1st. Virtue and Vice. — These two terms are usually employed 
as opposites, or contradictory conceptions. More technically they 
may be treated as contraries. But this refinement aside, they are 
always opposed to each other. The former, however, often has 
a meaning which is not reflected in the latter. This is due to the 
exigencies of special theories, as will appear in the analysis. 



ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 9 1 

The etymological import of the term virtue (Latin : virtus) is 
manliness, and in Roman civilization this was largely represented 
by the martial type of thought embodying the conceptions of a 
militant stage of life. But in the course of intellectual develop- 
ment the term was used as the equivalent of the Greek term 
apetfj (apGD, to fit), whose original import seems to have been 
fitness, harmony, adjustment, and so apparently describes the 
adaptation of means to ends. But in Greek Ethics this concep- 
tion seems not to have been current and the term denoted excel- 
lence, without distinction between natural and moral, original 
and acquired, qualities of being. Virtue was thus excellence of 
any kind, whether of blood, of talents, or of character. But 
Aristotle's distinction between intellectual and moral virtues and 
his limitation of ethics to the consideration of the latter have 
availed to narrow the term's significance until it now properly 
denotes only moral qualities, either qualities of will, or qualities of 
conduct. There are traces of the old conception in such phrases 
as " the virtues of medicine," " the virtues of crystals," etc. But 
this produces no confusion, since the phrases do not occur in 
ethical speculations. The ambiguity of the term, so far as it 
affects ethical doctrine, lies in its power to denote both excellence 
of being or will, and excellence of conduct. The former meaning 
refers to quality of character, of nature, of personality, and may 
well be an end of desire or of action. In this sense the 
merit which it denotes may be an absolute quality, appealing to 
our approval or admiration, and having its excellence in itself. 
With, this view of it the Stoics and later writers might well con- 
sider it as the highest good. But the second .meaning which 
describes excellence of conduct is very different. It here denotes 
a merit which is purely relative to the end at which the conduct 
aims. All action is a means to an end, and cannot very well be 
conceived as an end in itself. Whatever quality it has, there- 
fore, must be derived from the end or consequence to which it 
leads. If the end be good, the act may be good, and if the end 
be bad, the act will be bad. Now, as all the specific " virtues " 
like courage, temperance, honesty, etc., represent actions, there 



92 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

was no way to look at them but as means to some end, and 
hence they were virtues because they were causally connected 
with certain desirable ends like pleasure or perfection. Their 
quality was relative to those ends and dependent upon them. 
That is to say, in this meaning of the terms, virtue and virtuous 
denote only the fitness of a means to an end approved on other 
grounds than the nature of the means. It is evident that in this 
sense they could not denote an absolute or ultimate end, and 
hence so conceived we can understand the reluctance of the 
human mind to speak or think of the particular virtues, such as 
veracity, honesty, courage, etc., as ends in themselves to be sought 
on their own account and for which no reason could be assigned. 
It could not do so as long as it asked and gave the reason for 
their merit in the end which they were necessary to realize. But 
when virtue expresses excellence of will, nature, or character the 
case is different. It is then the equivalent of perfection, or the 
intrinsic quality of a being which is expressed or indicated by 
particular " virtues," while they are not means for attaining it. 
In this sense it is an object to be aimed at, not a means for attain- 
ing some other object. Hence we find the two very distinct 
meanings for the term : first, a quality of being which is an end, 
and second, a quality of action which is a means. One has 
absolute and the other has only a relative value. 

These two conceptions may give rise to two different theories 
of morality. If we use the term to denote only the means to an 
end, virtue must have its character determined solely in relation 
to that end. It is reducible and capable of analysis into the 
object which it serves, and will have no value but that of the 
result to which it is the causal or necessary means. This will 
explain the natural tendency of the mind to give a reason for 
the various duties of honesty, veracity, justice, humility, etc., 
other than those virtues themselves. On the other hand, if we 
take the term to mean excellence of character, the quality or 
nature of will which we call good on its own account, or perfec- 
tion of personality, there is no reason to consider it as a means to 
an end. Kather it may be regarded as an end having its own 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 93 

worth, as every highest good or ultimate end, whether it be 
pleasure or not, must have. Hence it would be reasonable to 
speak and think of pursuing virtue for its own sake when so 
conceived. 

The term vice requires no special discussion, as its import is 
parallel with that of virtue ; only it is to be noted that general 
usage confines its application more frequently to the nature of 
actions, rather than to that of the will or character. Hence it 
reflects the tendency of the mind to use the two terms for de- 
scribing the fitness and unfitness of certain actions in an ideal 
world. 

2d. Good and Bad or Evil. — These terms also have both an 
absolute and a relative import : an absolute to denote inherent 
characteristics, perfections, or imperfections, and a relative to 
denote fitness or unfitness for achieving an end. We can define 
both, however, by confining attention to one of them. Good, for 
instance, will qualify objects, animate or inanimate, persons, 
actions, and ends or purposes, and it does not always have the 
same import in each case. Thus it may qualify objects, animate 
or inanimate, below man, both absolutely and relatively. For 
instance, we may say " a good picture " when we mean only that 
it comes up to a certain standard of excellence, and not that it is 
useful for any material purpose. In this sense we mean to de- 
scribe certain intrinsic perfections of the picture, and not its 
mere fitness to realize an end. On the other hand, " a good 
watch," "a good horse," "a good government, "a good 
machine," etc., however they may imply the presence of certain 
excellences, intend definitely to express only -their value as 
means to an end. We should not call them " good " if they did 
not serve this useful purpose, although their intrinsic qualities 
might remain the same. The question, then, is whether moral 
goodness expresses anything more than adaptation to a given 
purpose. If it does not, we cannot speak of this purpose as 
" good " at all without degrading it to the rank of a means again 
to some ultimate end which cannot be called "good." Mr. 
Spencer maintains that the term has only a relative import. 



94 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

<' In which cases," he asks, " do we distinguish as good, a knife, 
a gun, a house? And what trait leads us to speak of a bad 
umbrella or a bad pair of boots ? The characters here predi- 
cated by the words good and bad are not intrinsic characters ; 
for apart from human wants, such things have neither merits 
nor demerits. We call these articles good or bad according as 
they are well or ill adapted to achieve prescribed ends ; ... so 
it is when we pass from inanimate objects to inanimate actions." 
When he comes to ethical actions he uses the same language. 
"Observation," he says, "shows that we apply them according 
as the adjustment of acts to ends are, or are not, efficient." All 
this is very true as far as Mr. Spencer's illustrations go. But 
he is either unfortunate in the choice of them, or he has failed 
to make his analysis exhaustive. In most such cases "good" 
does describe fit adjustment to ends, and only that. But it 
often also refers to intrinsic perfections which are not considered 
as a means to an end. They may be determined by relation to 
an ideal, but this is not making them causally relative to an 
end. They are qualities of excellence which we may admire 
without reference to their utility. Such expressions as " a good 
work of art," " a good book," " a good tree," " a good pane of 
glass," meaning in each instance only that the object comes up 
to a certain standard of perfection. Of course, some terms have 
both the absolute and the relative meaning, but the presence of 
the relative import may obscure or prevent the detection of the 
other meaning. A few instances, however, where the expression 
can denote only certain intrinsic excellences, admired on their 
own account, are sufficient to set aside Mr. Spencer's limitations 
and to defend the assertion that there is such a thing as an abso- 
lute good, worth or value, not spoken of or conceived as a mere 
means to an end. 

As applied to persons this use of the term is quite aiDparent. 
" A good man " is an expression which is without any rational 
meaning unless it describes a certain excellence of character, or 
quality of will representing at least a certain approximation to 
an ideal. To conceive it as relative to some end in this case 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 95 

would be to consider man merely as a means, and not as an end 
in himself. Where a condition of slavery exists we might use 
the term in that sense, but in a condition where every man is 
free and independent, goodness can describe his moral perfection 
or the presence of a quality which may be viewed as an end, as 
a worthy object on its own account, and not merely as a means 
to an end. It is true that man may often be a means to some 
end : he may always be so. But the moment that he becomes 
only a means, or that his excellences are conceived as only a 
means to some other end, he can have no moral worth which is 
not recognized in that end. Hence, the human mind when 
seeking some object or quality of intrinsic value in man, merit- 
ing moral approbation, has chosen to call it "good" simply 
because of that quality and not merely because it might be use- 
ful as a means. A good man, meaning a moral man, is one 
whose nature or character represents something ideal, not merely 
an instrument for giving pleasure to others or himself. The 
existence of such a conception is a complete refutation of the 
limitations placed upon the term by Mr. Spencer, and shows 
that it . possesses other than a purely relative import. The 
importance of this fact lies in the consideration that it validates 
the usage of language in speaking of ultimate ends as good, 
meaning thereby some excellence that is not merely a means, 
and shows how any means can obtain its merit by virtue of that 
relation to the end. It is apparent that in these usages the term 
is quite identical with the two meanings of " virtue," only that 
"virtue" in its relative sense is the name of a thing which is a 
means, while "good" distinctly expresses or implies its instru- 
mental character when purely relative. 

In its applications to actions "good" has only a relative sig- 
nification. Actions are only means to ends and cannot be called 
good without limiting that attribute to their instrumental rela- 
tion or connection with their result, and as Ethics has to do very 
largely with conduct it is only natural that the term should 
take on the essential meaning of the relative phenomena which 
it describes. Courage, fortitude, humility, honesty are all 



96 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

actions which must be estimated or valued solely on the 
ground of their relation to the end they serve, or because of the 
character they express. If they did not represent these relations 
they would not obtain the right to be called good actions. 
From these and like illustrations we can only conclude that 
where actions are described as good or bad, we can view the 
terms only in their relative signification, to denote merely 
adjustment to prescribed ends. Hence they describe no merit 
or obligation which is not derived from the end which they may 
realize. If this end cannot be shown to be ideal or moral, these 
actions cannot be good. In Ethics, therefore, good and bad 
cannot describe any absolute quality in actions. An absolute 
value must be found in some object or purpose whose pursuit 
sanctifies the action necessary to attain it. 

In its application to ends, the term good will have an absolute 
or a relative import according as the end is ultimate or subordi- 
nate. An ultimate end is one which represents the supreme 
object of desire or volition, to which everything else is subordi- 
nate or contributory. Thus I may make haj)piness my supreme 
purpose in life, and in that case I should subordinate fame, 
wealth, knowledge, and all other accomplishments to it. Or if I 
choose wealth, I subordinate my manner of business and dealings 
with men to that one end. On the other hand, a subordinate 
end is one which is a means to a remoter end. Thus the imme- 
diate end of my action may be to make knives. But this end 
again may be a means to the acquisition of wealth and this again 
to some other end. Thus some purposes may be both means and 
ends, and others only ends but not means. An end which is not 
a means is always ultimate or supreme. Now in application to 
this the term good can only have an absolute meaning. It can 
describe the ultimate end or ends of life only as objects having 
intrinsic worth, and not as means to any remoter end. This 
must be true or the term cannot apply to them. Thus if the 
Utilitarian calls pleasure or happiness the highest good, he must 
either admit the absolute meaning of the term or abandon call- 
ing the ultimate end of life a good at all. We cannot define 



ELEMEXTARY PRINCIPLES 97 

the term as purely relative and then apply it to an absolute end. 
Hence when we do apply it to the ultimate object of life we 
intend to express ah intrinsic quality by it, a certain kind of 
excellence or perfection, and not mere causal capacity. 

The importance of considering the two meanings of the term 
is the same as in the case of the term virtue, with which ti is 
often identical. There is a slight difference between them in 
most applications, but it is not essential to ethical discussions. 
The two uses have their value, however, in the fact that they en- 
able us to consider the controversy about moral obligations at 
its very basis. One of the problems of theoretical interest to 
Ethics is the question whether moral obligation is ever uncon- 
ditional ; whether duty is not merely relative to an end which 
we may choose or not, as we please. The sceptic tells us that 
the various duties and virtues, like temperance, chastity, filial 
obedience, etc., are binding only so long as we desire the end to 
which they are the means, and that so long -as we reject that 
ideal there is no necessity or constraint to exercise them. This 
is to say that moral obligation is conditioned upon something 
which is not moral or obligatory at all. As long as " good " 
expresses a merely relative meaning, or fitness to achieve an end, 
causal or instrumental agency, this might be true. But if the 
term is also employed to denote what the mind denotes by an 
absolute and ultimate value, irreducible to anything more 
supreme, there is reason to consider moral goodness as expressing 
unconditional obligations of some kind, and we are not at liberty 
to discard it. It is, in fact, the sense of an unconditionally im- 
perative end that has tempted the human mind to speak and 
think of the specific virtues as absolutely binding, and thus by 
abstraction to lose sight of the one fact that constituted their 
moral character. 

3d. Right and Wrong — Right (Latin rectus, straight ; Greek 
equivalent, opdo5) denotes literally directness or straightness, 
and wrong (Anglo-Saxon wringen, to twist) denotes obliquity or 
crookedness. In Ethics, however, there is only metaphor to re- 
tain these etymological meanings, and hence they describe cer- 



98 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

tain qualities of action. They do not always coincide with the 
terms good and bad, or virtue and vice, while they have one as- 
sociated implication not found in those at all. This will be 
shown in the analysis of them. The first will suffice for this. 

The term " right " has several distinct meanings which may 
be reduced to its substantive and its attributive import. They do 
not all of them express moral quality and it is on this account 
that the term is liable to illusion. Each may be considered in 
its order. 

1. "Right" (Latin Jus) as a substantive, " sl right" or 
" rights," denotes a claim of one person against the infringement 
of others, or a possession which can be defended against aggres- 
sion. It is illustrated in such phrases as " the right to life," 
" the right to vote," " human rights," etc., and essentially means 
that force may be legitimately used in the defence of it, though 
there may not always be an obligation to do so. In this usage 
it does not necessarily imply any kind of morality. It is prac- 
tically identical with liberty of action, or a privilege which it is 
proper to exercise, and which confers immunity upon the sub- 
ject from all penalties for its exercise. It implies a duty on the 
part of others to respect it and not to interfere with it, but it 
does not express any absolute obligation on the part of the sub- 
ject to act according to his liberty. Consequently it has only a 
peculiarly relative import in that it implies a duty on the part 
of other rational beings to restrict their own liberty of action 
according to this right, but implies no duties on the part of the 
subject, unless he too be rational. Thus animals are said to have 
" rights " but no duties ; but they have " rights " only in relation 
to man, who has duties toward them. But between men the 
duties are reciprocal by virtue of the possession of the same 
rights, while between animals there are neither " rights " nor 
duties. It is the possession of a rational nature that determines 
the existence of duties, and it is a relation to rational beings 
that determines the existence of " rights." What that relation 
is it is not necessary to consider at present. But it is important 
to know that it is only a relation to rational beings and not 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 99 

merely the possession of a rational nature that determines the 
existence of rights, as the practice of civilization represents the 
matter. This will explain why the term in this sense does not 
connote morality, but only the unreasonableness of interference 
with a right by those who are rational, or claim to be. 

2. "Right" (Latin rectus), as an attributive qualifying 
objects, denotes correctness of choice or judgment between alter- 
natives, and so is distinguished from wrong as true is from false. 
It is illustrated in such phrases as " the right person," " the 
right path," "right judgment," "right opinion," etc. In this 
usage the term has no moral implications whatever and does not 
express a moral quality in the object described. It merely indi- 
cates that as between two or more alternatives, conceived as 
related to a certain end, the choice has been a correct one. If I 
am hesitating about the road I shall take among several before 
me to a certain point of destination, I may be told that a certain 
one is " the right road," by which is meant, not that there is 
any moral obligation to take that course, but that this is the 
proper one to take me whither I wish to go, or with the least 
pains and inconvenience. If the road is the only one to my 
destination and I will to go to it, I am " obliged " to choose this 
road. But the obligation is not moral unless the journey itself 
is morally imperative. The obligation is only a constraint 
or necessity to adopt this means, if I insist upon pursuing the 
end. Hence " right " in this case denotes nothing more than 
correctness, or the proper causal connection between the alterna- 
tive or means chosen and the end desired. It simply denotes 
intellectually correct determinations, not moral quality. 

3. "Right" (Latin rectus, honestus, etc.), as attributive qual- 
ifying actions, denotes moral quality, and so indicates their im- 
perativeness or praiseworthiness. There are instances here also 
where the term signifies merely intellectual correctness of judg- 
ment, but it is usually in the phrase " the right " as contrasted 
with " a right." This is an interesting illustration of a very 
subtle illusion to which the human mind is exposed in using such 
expressions. But phrases like " right conduct," " right action," 



100 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

and statements like " that is right," " temperance is right," etc., 
denote moral quality and hence imply an obligation to realize 
them. But the term retains its references to causal connection 
between the means and the end, while it never expresses the 
conception of virtue taken in the sense of excellence. Even 
when the term virtue or virtuous refers to actions it never 
indicates causal capacity or relation, but only moral quality by 
virtue of that connection with an end conceived as moral. But 
the term right expresses both moral quality and causal connec- 
tion when describing the means to an end. 

4. "Eight" (Latin equitas, honestum, justitia, etc.), as substan- 
tive again, denoting ends or an object of moral volition, signifies 
that which carries the highest obligation with it. It is purely an 
abstract conception to describe the quality, either of an action or 
an end that gives it morality and imperativeness. In this mean- 
ing of the term the conception of virtue as excellence is not 
found. There is only the idea of moral necessity or obligation, 
whether there be excellence, utility, or other merit in it. It 
denotes in this use pure morality, or the duty that rests upon 
all wills, absolutely considered and irrespective of any other ob- 
ject than itself. Whether there be any such thing or not, it is 
not our purpose to settle at present. It is important only to 
show current usage, and to notice the tendency of the human 
mind to conceive something else than a purely relative good or 
right, though it becomes entangled in difficulties, when called to 
define its meaning, by the simultaneous power of the same terms, 
to denote only relative qualities. 

5. It is proper to call attention to a peculiar use of the term 
" right," which shows its extreme flexibility. It sometimes de- 
notes merely moral indifference, or not wrong. This appears in 
such expressions as : " It is right to take a walk, or to play ball, 
if I desire to do so," etc. No moral obligation is expressed by 
this manner of statement, but only that the act is not wrong pro- 
vided the liberties of others are not infringed. It is, therefore, 
more or less synonymous with liberty of action, and seems to be 
an attributive use of the term to express what is meant by " a 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES ' 101 

right," or " rights." No special importance attaches to this sig- 
nification of the word farther, than to denote the equivocation 
to which it might give rise both consciously and unconsciously. 

The term " wrong " has simply the opposite import of the term 
" right," except a general meaning opposed to that of " a right " 
or " rights " is not common. 

4th. Moral or Morality. — The primitive and etymological 
import of the term (Latin mos) was custom, usage, or the rules 
which society imposed upon its members. The force of public 
opinion and of the law, with the constraints which they estab- 
lished, gave rise to the notion of authority as characterizing the 
" moral." Hence the term described a life according to accepted 
usage, or common as opposed to eccentric and independent con- 
duct. But as civilization progressed, the term took up the funda- 
mental conceptions, which the prevalent theories of Ethics created, 
regarding the nature of what was called morality. The implica- 
tion of external authority was transformed into one of internal 
authority, and then into the conceptions of utilitarian and other 
doctrines. Very early these conceptions now expressed by it 
were embodied in equivalents, like righteousness, uprightness, 
holiness, etc. (Latin honestum, rectum, Greek to KaXov, 
SiKair/y and later opdia), and when the term came to be 
adopted for the general class of ethical phenomena, it denoted 
a certain quality about actions which made them praiseworthy 
and imperative, independently of mere conformity to usage or 
authority out of the fear of consequences. Controversies also 
between the physical and the "moral" sciences availed to im- 
press their influence upon the meaning of the term, and hence 
taking all of them into account, we should be able to enumerate 
a number of significations. But they can be reduced to two 
general forms, the generic and the specific meanings of the term. 

1. The generic import of the term moral applies to all 
voluntary actions, whether good or bad, and which are the sub- 
ject of ethical consideration. Such actions are called " moral" 
in contradistinction to physical and involuntary actions, 
which are not subject to either praise or blame, and so are 



102 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

properly non-moral in their nature. The distinction here is 
between personal or free and impersonal or necessitated acts. 
There is no special importance attaching to this meaning, but it 
is well to keep it in mind as necessary to understand certain dis- 
tinctions which have been embodied in ethical doctrine. It is 
within the limits of the second meaning that the term obtains its 
more important qualifications. 

2. The specific import of the term is that of rightness as 
opposed to wrong and hence is contrasted with the immoral 
rather than the unmoral or non-moral, though it is, of course, dis- 
tinguished from these at the same time. Moral is here not only 
personal but is also virtuous and imperative actions, and so de- 
scribes that quality of conduct by which it has acquired the 
character of righteousness. Within this general meaning it has 
also obtained different meanings according as action is viewed 
externally or objectively and internally or subjectively. Some- 
times it denotes any personal act affecting the order of the 
world for good, no matter what the motive, and sometimes it 
describes only the volitional act independently of the conse- 
quences, and so makes righteousness merely a quality of will. 
But these meanings will come up when discussing the questions 
of moral actions more directly, while it is sufficient at present to 
know that there is an equivocal meaning in the term growing 
out of this distinction between motive and consequence. As 
a general result, then, we obtain two important uses of the term, 
one contrasting personal or voluntary and physical actions, and 
the other two distinct kinds of personal or voluntary actions. 
The first pair represents the contrast between conscious and un- 
conscious, or free and necessitated actions; the second pair 
represents the antithesis between good and evil actions, both of 
which are free or personal and conscious. This gives us three 
forms of actions to be considered — the moral, the non-moral or in- 
different, and the immoral. Confusion may occur between the 
last two classes when we assume that all actions must be either 
good or bad ; that is, we sometimes illegitimately identify " not 
moral " with immoral. This probably gives rise to no difficulties 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 103 

in speculative and theoretical Ethics when we are on the alert 
for such illusions, but in practical life it often avails to carry 
unfair insinuations with it when we speak of an action as " not 
moral M and mean by it that it is immoral. Common life often 
proceeds upon the loose assumption that the disjunction is com- 
plete between the moral and the immoral, and distributes praise 
accordingly, and thus does not make allowance for the large field 
of actions that are indifferent and that constitute the province of 
rights and of moral liberty. 

5th. Duty and Obligation. — Duty (Latin debere, to owe) 
and obligation (Latin obligate, to bind), though etymologically 
distinct, have logically the same import. Both originally ex- 
pressed that relation between two persons which is indicated by 
the indebtedness of one to the other, a condition in which there 
is a constraint upon one to return a service to the other. They 
still express this thought with the conception that the service is 
not a mere debt or obligation, assumable or dissolvable at will 
by contract, but a fixed due unconditionally binding upon a 
rational subject toward all others. They describe what ought to 
be done as contrasted with that which we are at liberty to do or 
not do. The ideas expressed by them are very difficult to de- 
fine in other terms than themselves. They are rather unique in 
their nature, and we better understand the feelings and condi- 
tions they indicate than we can choose any brief phrase to 
denominate their meaning. Besides, like most other terms in 
Ethics, they have absorbed the variety of conceptions that have 
characterized different stages of intellectual and moral develop- 
ment, while they have lost none of the associations belonging to 
an earlier stage. Hence they have become ambiguous. Con- 
straint, a feeling of necessity or compulsion, a limitation to one 
course of conduct where we desire liberty, are the conceptions 
that describe the original and perhaps the prevalent notion of 
the terms. But the development of the doctrine that morality 
does not consist merely in obedience to authority out of fear, but 
in reverence for law and personality, has carried with it the 
notion that our duty and obligation consists in reverence and re- 



104 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

spect for an ideal which is very far removed from the notion or 
constraint or compulsion. The consequence is that the two 
terms give considerable difficulty in the construction of an ethi- 
cal theory. One of their meanings opposes them to inclination, 
desire, or interest, and the other identifies them with interest, or 
at least with the highest conceivable interest. This variation 
was brought about by the process alluded to in which the terms 
retained along with their older associations the accretions of 
later stages of moral development. In the first place, the con- 
straint of authority and the subordination of all other claims 
and desires to the one course of conduct enjoined by what was 
called a man's duty very easily carried with it, especially in 
individualistic ages, the conception that ali desires and inclina- 
tions must be suppressed in the presence of this law. This 
created the idea that duty necessarily involves a struggle or con- 
flict with interest and natural desire, and so tenacious has been 
this impression of its meaning that most persons still think of it 
as always requiring a sacrifice of natural impulses to do their 
duty, and many often think and act with the fear that they are 
not doing what is right unless they are resisting the temptations 
of some pleasure or desire. But as the sense of duty in this con- 
ception represented the highest motive to action, the intellectual 
change from the sentiment of authority and fear to that of rev- 
erence or respect as the proper attitude of mind and will in 
moral action, wdiile the object of it remained the same as before, 
carried with it the conception that one's duty must consist with 
reverence and a positive love for the ideal ; so that the term 
added this idea to that of conflict with lower impulses, while it 
changed the kind or attitude of the subject's interest, and there 
remains still the difficulties of conceiving the term as implying 
a conflict with desire, on the one hand, and as representing the 
highest desire, on the other. 

Theoretical Ethics is very much influenced by this equivo- 
cation, and even the general moral consciousness is confused by it 
when called to assign the highest motives to conduct. But the 
consequences of this ambiguity cannot be dwelt upon at present. 



ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 105 

It is enough to know it exists and is likely to produce all the 
perverse antagonisms which duplicity of meaning is calculated 
to create. Later, in the discussion of the nature of morality, we 
may return to it, and be content at present with the warning 
against illusion, which the consciousness of equivocal conceptions 
can provide. 

III. PSYCHOLOGICAL FIELD OF MORAL CONSCIOUS- 
NESS. — Man's moral nature has often been conceived as 
a simple one and very little complicated with the intellectual. 
Many, indeed, have gone so far as to assert that the only differ- 
ence between man and the animals, so far as intelligence is 
concerned, is one of degree, but that man's moral nature estab- 
lished a difference of kind. This conception of the matter 
makes moral capacity unique and independent in its character 
of the general faculties of intelligence, and has been embodied 
in the doctrine of conscience. But it is a mistake thus to isolate 
moral phenomena. They are part and parcel of the general 
functions of the mind. Not that they cannot be distinguished 
from other mental events, but that the distinction is rather one 
of the objects than of the processes concerned. Moral phenomena 
will give more prominence to certain functions than the purely 
intellectual activities in the objective sciences of nature, but 
they will not exclude them altogether. Consciousness, judgment, 
feeling, are quite as much concerned with morality as they are 
with science and art ; only the objects of it differ and perhaps 
the kind of feeling. But they cannot be eliminated from it 
altogether. They pervade all the operations of our moral nature 
and give it completeness. Hence, in order to properly under- 
stand that nature, we require to know all the elements that enter 
into it. But we can abbreviate the analysis for Ethics which 
would have to be more elaborate in Psychology. Hence, we shall 
merely outline the whole field of mental phenomena. A sketch 
of this kind is represented by the following tabular review. 

I. Intellection. — This is the general process occupied with the acqui- 
sition, retention, ^reproduction, and elaboration of conceptions. 
It includes three subordinate processes. 



106 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

1st. Cognition = Consciousness of present objects. 

1. Sensation = Affection or Reaction of the organism. 

2. Perception = Apprehension of an object. 

2d. Conservation = Preservation and Consciousness of past objects. 

1. Eetention = Passive Memory. 

2. Reproduction and Association = Recall. 

3. Recognition = Active Memory. 

3d. Construction = Consciousness of relations. The process is one of 
comparison and synthesis. 

1. Conception — Synthesis of percepts. 

2. Judgment = Synthesis of concepts. 

3. Reasoning = Synthesis of judgments. 

II. Emotion. — This is a general state of excitement attending the exer- 

cise of function, or interesting the subject as an attraction or 
repulsion. 

1st. Subjective, or Reflexive Emotion == Sensibilities or Pleasures and 
Pains. These are reflexes of activity, functional, intellectual, 
and volitional. 

2d. Objective, or Impulsive Emotion = Passions. These are the attrac- 
tions and repulsions of consciousness directed toward objects. 

III. Conation. — This is the general faculty of effort or all the influences 

of the mind which issue in activity. 

1st. Motive Powers = Desires and Legislative functions of conscious- 
ness.* 

1. Impulse = Non-deliberative and Unadjusted Passion. 

2. Instinct = Organic, Co-ordinated, and Adjusted Desires. 

3. Reason = Deliberative and Regulative Forces of Con- 

sciousness. 

(a) Prudential Reason ; Utility or Interest is its object. 

(6) Moral Reason, or Conscience ; Duty or Virtue is its 

object. 

2d. Active Powers = Determinative and Initiative Functions of 
Consciousness. 

1. Choice = Determinative. Internal in its nature and 

decides the character of the agent, or the subjective 
quality of moral action. 

2. Volition = Executive. External in its effect and decides, 

though it does not constitute, the objective quality of 
moral action. 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 107 

In distinguishing man's moral from his intellectual nature we 
do not wholly exclude the latter functions, but we merely add 
them to those which we regard as more particularly constituting 
the moral, and these are the emotional and conative functions. 
Intellectual operations, occupied with the acquisition of mere 
knowledge, concern themselves with facts, events or phenomena 
as they occur according to natural law. They simply observe 
and explain them. Thus intellectual processes are speculative, 
reducing phenomena to their laws and causes. On the other 
hand, man's moral functions are concerned with ideals or ends, 
as opposed to mere events. They estimate the value or worth of 
certain facts and objects of desire, and attempt to regulate the 
pursuit of them as ends. This contrasts them with the intel- 
lectual processes as occupied with an order of events already 
produced, and shows them concerned with a possible order of 
events not yet realized, and which must be realized by the will. 
But in spite of this difference intellectual activities are involved 
in the moral. Consciousness is always involved in the judg- 
ments of value and the motivation of volition. Cognition is an 
invariable element of the estimation of values and ends, and the 
speculative functions are necessary to the determination of the 
means to ends. And " means " is only a term to denote the 
practical, as " cause " is a term to denote the theoretical, relation 
of events. Moral consciousness determines the ends of life and 
the legitimate means to them, while purely intellectual conscious- 
ness determines the causal relations of phenomena, which indi- 
cate what can be the means to ends. The former is helpless, 
however, without the accompaniment of the latter, and hence 
cognition must always be a fundamental element of moral con- 
sciousness. 

It is not necessary to enter into the detailed relation of the 
subordinate faculties to the moral. It is enough to know that 
they enter into the subject matter and processes of moral phe- 
nomena as general elements wherever cognition is a part. It is 
only necessary to emphasize the function of the knowing process 
in order to set aside the doctrine that moral consciousness is 



108 ELEMEJ\TS OF ETHICS 

simple and unique. The temptation to regard it as such comes 
from the prominence of the feelings, expressed by pleasure and 
pain and the sense of duty, in moral consciousness as a whole, 
which do not appear as distinctive in theoretical occupations. 
But the necessity of knowing the highest good, of discriminating 
between objects that compete with it for this supremacy, of as- 
certaining what are the possible means to any end, as well as the 
right means, is evidence of what pure cognition does for con- 
science, and hence it must be recognized as a psychological 
datum in the complex known as moral consciousness. 

It is apparent, therefore, that we use the terms " moral con- 
sciousness " as an expression for the ensemble or aggregate of all 
the intellectual, emotional, motive and active functions of the 
mind as exercised with objects called moral. In that sense we 
may regard it as unique. But it is so by virtue of the object 
with which it is occupied rather than because of the mental 
processes involved, which are the same as in other mental activi- 
ties. Thus moral judgment is simply discrimination in regard to 
right and wrong ; moral emotion is approval or disapproval, 
while intellectual emotion is satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the 
discovery of truth ; moral choice is a decision between right and 
wrong, while in scientific matters it is attention or correct selec- 
tion of facts. In this way we readily perceive that moral con- 
sciousness is not only complex, but differs from any other 
consciousness only in the subject matter with which it deals. 

Again the Sensibilities and the Passions are prominent elements 
of the moral nature. For instance, pleasure and pain are 
accompaniments of nearly every form of action, functional or 
volitional, and we are obliged to take account of them in regu- 
lating our conduct. They may become the sole object of voli- 
tion, the one of pursuit and the other of aversion, and lead to 
the disregarding of other ends. Again the passions of love, 
hatred, sympathy, fear, anger, malice are influences on character, 
or expressions of it and require to be properly directed. They 
are moral agencies in so far as they are rationally controlled 
and directed and hence make up a part of the moral nature of 



ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 109 

the subject. The study of them and of the means of keeping both 
the sensibilities and the passions under subjection is a very 
important part of Ethics. 

The conative functions are a still more important element of 
moral consciousness. All moral action, so far as it is rational, 
and it is perhaps impossible to conceive any other as moral, must 
have its motives and its executive character. The motive is the 
consciousness of a purpose or end and the accompaniment of a 
desire to act. It is the impelling character of consciousness. It 
may take any one of the three forms mentioned — impulse, 
instinct, or reason. All these go to make up the agent considered 
as a moral being and so are a part of the psychology of conduct. 
Then there is the choice and the volition. The choice is the 
decision of the mind between two or more alternatives, and it is 
the point where the whole character of the agent is determined. 
It is the first element of action properly considered, and as it is, 
so is the morality of the man. The volition is the determinate 
act to execute a choice or resolve and puts into effect the object 
chosen. It is the part of a moral act which sets other agencies 
going to achieve a result, and determines the good or bad part of 
conduct apart from the character of the agent. The motive and 
choice determine the goodness or badness of the will, and the 
volition the goodness or badness both of the character and of the 
result, of the former as an expression of it, and of the latter as 
the cause of it. The psychology of morality, therefore, involves 
all these complex functions as determining its nature. It is not 
a unique and isolated phenomenon, but absorbs in various pro- 
portions all the operations and functions of the mind. 

Having thus indicated all the elements that enter into our 
moral nature, we. may speak of them comprehensively as 
knowledge, emotion, and volition. This conception of the case 
will enable us to take up moral action and discuss its nature. 
Moral action covers a narrower field than the moral nature. It 
refers mainly to the will, though regarding the other factors as 
important accompaniments. But in taking up the simple 
phenomenon of action we can discuss it as an event in contrast 



110 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

with actions that are admittedly not moral. The first problem, 
therefore, will be to decide the conditions of morality, or of the 
distribution of praise and blame. 

IV. THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY.— ."When we come 
to classify actions connected with human life, we find many of 
them free from either praise or blame, and yet their nature and 
effects make them resemble those which are moral to such an ex- 
tent as often to cause confusion regarding them. Every moral 
act is subject to praise or blame, merit or demerit, using the 
term moral here in its specific sense. It is in this way contrasted 
with all actions which occur without the intention or conscious- 
ness of the agent, and all that are not freely performed. Hence, 
the following conditions of morality : 

1st. Consciousness or Intelligence. — Every act, in order to 
be moral, must at least be an intelligent act. The agent must 
be conscious of what he is doing. He must have an end in view, 
and if not conscious of all the effects that may follow, he must at 
least know that he aims at some result. It is for what he aims 
at that he is responsible, and he cannot be responsible for any re- 
sult of which he is wholly ignorant, and which it is no part of his 
intention to effect. That is, he is not morally responsible, as 
that term is technically applied, unless conscious. We may in- 
terfere with him to prevent such an action, on the ground that 
he is the cause of it, but he is not responsible or subject to praise 
or blame unless the act be conscious or intentional. 

There is a whole series of actions that cannot be moral for the 
want of this characteristic. First among them are physical ac- 
tions which are the necessary effects of antecedent causes. Then 
there is the class of reflex actions which are so much like purely 
mechanical movements that they might be called such. They 
are unconscious and physiological responses to stimulus, and are 
illustrated in their purest forms by such cases as circulation, di- 
gestion, and in modified forms by breathing, winking, etc. Ac- 
tions also which represent an immediate and unreflective response 
to some stimulus, though we become at once conscious of them 
when done, are true reflexes. Again, automatic or spontaneous 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 111 

actions, like those of very young infants, or the unregulated and 
unconscious or unintended acts of any one, not affected by any 
known stimulus, are also like the reflexes in being non-moral. 
They are physical or physiological to all intents and purposes. 
That they are not moral actions is a truism which every one 
knows. But they afford a clear illustration of what must be one 
of the essential conditions of a moral act. They lack the element 
of consciousness. The agent is neither conscious of the result 
which they effect, nor does he consciously aim at this result. But 
where he is conscious of the result, and intends it, he is responsi- 
ble. That is to say, that to be conscious, on the one hand, of the 
effect of one's action, and to consciously aim at it, on the other, 
are facts which place such actions under a very different category 
from those which have just been mentioned. Consciousness, 
either aiming at an end, or aware of a result connected with 
volition, characterizes conduct as very different from mechanical 
actions, and the clearest way to present its influence in this re- 
spect is to compare it with that class. Consciousness is presum- 
ably a cause or antecedent of action conditioning or accompany- 
ing, or at least the index, of the power to determine conduct 
otherwise than mechanical or unconscious forces. It involves a 
knowledge of alternative courses of action, and even when 
this is not determinately active, it represents an influence 
which is directed to an end as distinguished from a mere 
result, and in this way qualifies actions so that they cannot be 
identified with physical movements and their antecedents. It is 
this intelligence which makes conduct rational, as it is called, 
under the condition described, and any action which does not 
come under some degree of this characteristic must be excluded 
from morality, generically considered, and treated as non-moral. 
2d. Freedom. — (But there is a second equally important 
condition of morality closely connected with the first. It is free- 
dom. It is not enough that conduct be accompanied by con- 
sciousness ; it must be free. The subject must be the cause of 
the action and capable at least of knowing that some other 
alternative was possible than the one actually chosen. We 



112 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

cannot at present discuss either what is meant by the freedom of 
the will or the question whether it is free or not. We can only 
point out that in some sense there must be what is called free 
will if morality be possible at all. We* are not here assuming 
that there is any such thing in fact as morality, but only that 
morality and freedom must stand or fall together ; that freedom 
is a primary condition of it, if morality exists in fact. The term 
is unquestionably used in different senses, which we shall have to 
examine again, but there is one general conception of it that all 
would admit, and this is that a free act is, in the first place, 
initiated by the subject, not by the object or external world, 
and, in the second place, is consciously willed with a knowledge 
of alternative possibilities (whether the agent can choose between 
them or not). In this sense, at least, every act must be free in 
order to be moral. All such actions of my person as are reflex, 
automatic, or performed unconsciously are not free ; that is, I 
have not caused them. So with any actions forced upon me, 
and of which I am the mere instrument. Properly speaking, 
they are not my acts : they are only connected with my physical 
person. Thus if some other being or person uses my hand or 
limbs to effect any result, if I am the passive instrument for 
inflicting an injury upon some one, as, for instance, being pushed 
against another, my action is not free. Strictly speaking it is 
not my act at all, though its connection with my person gives 
rise to the habit of calling it mine. But it is not a free act, 
not being willed or initiated by myself, and I cannot be made 
responsible for it. Neither praise nor blame can attach to it, 
and hence it is not moral in any sense of the term. To be such 
I must will the action. I must be the free, spontaneous cause of 
it. In this way we must regard freedom as a fundamental con- 
dition of morality. 

3d. Conscience. — Conscience, speaking generally, is the 
power to distinguish between right and wrong, whatever we may 
say about its additional functions. This faculty or power must 
be possessed by every free agent in order to be moral or to 
make his conduct moral. It is not enough that he be free and 



ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 113 

intelligent or conscious. He must also be able to appreciate the 
existence of a moral ideal and to distinguish between right and 
wrong. It is probable that all the higher animals act both 
consciously with reference to an end and with a measurable de- 
gree of deliberation and freedom, but they lack all traces of 
what we call conscience, even when they do noble acts, some of 
which are recorded of them. It is usual to 'explain such actions 
by reference to instinct, association, sympathy for masters, but 
not by reference to a conscience as we know it in man. I do not 
mean by this to affirm the broad distinction between man and 
the animals which was current before evolution was accepted, 
but only to indicate that the difference is great enough to be 
embodied in the doctrine of conscience ; for nothing can be more 
certain, whatever the resemblances, that man has a nature in 
relation to conduct which animals do not systematically betray, 
and no one adjudges the animal world as moral or responsible. 
Animals are either almost wholly egoistic in their character or 
they act without the slighest sense of duty or respect for law, so 
far as can be determined. Hence despite their consciousness 
and freedom they have not the remaining quality to make their 
actions moral, subject to praise and blame or moral disci- 
pline. This contrast helps distinctly to show how conscience, 
which distinguishes man, must be a condition of morality and re- 
sponsibility ; for wherever the person or creature is suspected of 
being without it, his cod duct is classed as morally indifferent. 
It cannot possess that quality of reason and will which acknowl- 
edges consciously a distinction between right and wrong. I am 
not saying or implying that conscience must be active in all ap- 
plied cases, but only that the individual must have the capacity 
for the distinction mentioned before his action can be treated as 
moral. The relation of an active conscience to conduct will come 
up again. But to distinguish between moral and non-moral con- 
duct the aofent must have the sense of value and obligation in 
social relations to at least a limited degree ; that is, he must 
have the quality of power expressed by conscience, though he may 
not have the quantity of development of it represented by perfect 



1 1 4 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

responsibility. This, then, is a primary condition of treating his 
actions as moral in any sense whatever. 

There are certain interesting facts to be noted about these con- 
ditions. They are cumulative in their nature. Besides being 
conditions of morality they are related to each other somewhat in 
the same way. The first conditions the second, and the second 
along with the first conditions the third. The presence of all of 
them at the same time is necessary to make conduct moral, but 
the absence of any one is sufficient to eliminate that quality. 
But the absence of the first will render the existence of both 
freedom and conscience impossible, while it may be present and 
both of these absent. This merely shows that freedom and con- 
science are qualities added on to consciousness. 

Another circumstance to be observed is that these qualities 
condition morality in the generic sense. The possession of them 
does not make an act moral in the specific sense, as contrasted 
with immoral. They merely make it accountable, or moral in 
the sense that the agent can be treated according to the law of 
imputability which assumes that he is more or less capable 
of alternative choice. A man may be conscious or intelligent, he 
may be free, and he may have a conscience, and yet his conduct 
be immoral. This shows that they are not elements but 
conditions of morality. One other condition is necessary to 
make conduct moral in the specific sense. It is conscientiousness, 
or respect for the end chosen, as the right, or as the highest good. 
I shall not enlarge upon this feature of the problem, because it 
will come up again. But it is important to remark, before going 
farther, a circumstance incident to the ambiguity of the term 
" moral " as it has already been defined, and calling attention to 
the important distinction between the conditions and the 
elements of morality; which, however, is occasioned mainly, 
if not altogether, by that equivocation. We may turn next, 
therefore, to the elements of moral conduct as suggested by the 
distinction to which we have alluded. 

V.— ELEMENTS OF MORA L COND UCT. — This topic can be dis- 
cussed without reference to the distinction between generically 



ELEMENT AB Y PRINCIPLES 115 

and specifically moral actions, for in the broad sense they have 
the same formal elements. They differ only materially; that is, 
in the character of the elements of which they are composed. 
Every moral act is complex, by virtue of the fact that it exists 
in relation to the subject and the object, or the agent and the 
patient, the person acting and the person or thing acted upon. 
The word " action " might not indicate this fact of complexity, 
because it is taken in its abstract sense to denote merely the 
volition or the movements taken as instruments connecting 
the subject with some designed result. But taken in its complex 
applications moral action necessary includes more than mere 
choice alone or mere movement alone. It involves both the 
state of mind and will which is the antecedent of movement and 
volition, and the consequence which is the effect or object of that 
antecedent. In its comprehensive import, therefore, moral con- 
duct comprises three elements, the motive, the act, and the result. 
Calderwood makes them the motive, the act, and the end. But 
the motive and the end are inseparable and imply each other, so 
that the distinction intended to be conveyed by them is not 
sufficiently clear. Hence I choose the term result or conse- 
quence as indicating something which does not necessarily imply 
the motive. This distinction between the end and the result is 
an important one, because it has a bearing upon the compre- 
hensiveness of morality. The end is a principal factor in deter- 
mining what is moral. It is always the result aimed at, and 
when there is no miscarriage of purpose the motive and result 
will always coincide. But there are often results in connection 
with volition which were not intended by the agent, and which 
yet determine the character of the conduct without involving 
the morality and responsibility of the agent. Hence it is neces- 
sary to distinguish a certain function for results in the problem 
of Ethics apart from that of the motive and end. Whether we 
shall call the result any part of morality, considering that it 
may not be intended, depends wholly upon the conception we 
take of morality. There are two separate schools in regard to 
this matter. Gne of them estimates morality wholly from the 



116 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

standpoint of consequences and the other wholly from the 
standpoint of motives. This difference makes it necessary to 
examine each element very carefully in order to ascertain the 
part played by it in the constitution of morality. But previous 
to this undertaking it is important to state the reasons for so 
considering the several elements of conduct. 

1st. Reasons for the Analysis of Morality. — There are sev- 
eral reasons for separating morality into distinct elements. 
Were there no difference between the schools in regard to it, and 
were the ground of it either the motive or the consequences 
alone, there would be no complexity to deal with. But the very 
fact that one school lays the whole stress upon character, and the 
other upon consequences, shows that the conception of morality 
and responsibility is distinct in each case. Common sense gen- 
erally exhibits .judgments in sympathy with both schools, either 
without knowing, or with entire indifference to, the contradiction 
which is often charged to it. Hence we have the following 
reasons for investigating separately the motive, the act, and the 
result in conduct. 

1. The Subjective and Objective Meanings of Moeal- 
ity. — We have already discussed one ambiguity incident to the 
use of the term "moral," namely, its generic and its specific 
import. But there is a still more important difficulty and this 
grows out of the habit, now of using it to denote the subjective 
conditions of conduct, and again to denote its objective refer- 
ence, or the ground upon which the subjective facts and conduct 
are adjudged. This originates in the following manner: On 
the one hand, all conduct must be measured by reference to its 
end. But this is a consequence; only it is the consequence 
aimed at, and this partial coincidence of the motive and result 
often gives rise to their confusion with each other. Again, conse- 
quences are good or bad according as they are related to human 
perfection and happiness, and reflect their character upon the 
actions issuing in them. This quality may not be moral good- 
ness or badness, but only a characteristic which is related to 
human welfare for good or evil without reference to the motive 



ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 117 

producing the consequence. As good and bad are applied to 
the same acts when originating from volition, it is only natural 
that morality and the good should become confused with each 
other, and the former measured solely by reference to conse- 
quences. 

On the other side, as remarked, ends and consequences or re- 
sults do not always coincide. Consequences of which the agent 
may be wholly ignorant, and at which he did not aim, may be 
produced by his conduct. For these he cannot be held respon- 
sible, and as morality and responsibility are often made coexten- 
sive in their import, it would be natural to exclude consequences 
per se from the strict consideration of morality, and to limit that 
quality to the motive or end. Physical results not aimed at or 
not known may occur incidentally, and be good or bad, but con- 
sciousness, being a condition of what is moral, and presumably 
absent in this imaginary case, while morality is supposably 
initiated by volition, the conception of that characteristic is 
naturally confined to the intelligent cause or motion of the re- 
sult, rather than to the result itself. Hence one school measures 
morality by the antecedent or cause of results aimed at, exclud- 
ing consequences, as equally irrelevant with purely physical phe- 
nomena, while the opposing school measures it by consequences 
and confuses the subjectively moral or immoral with the objec- 
tively good or bad. 

2. The Ambiguity of the Term Act. — There is an equivo- 
cation in the use of this term which almost coincides with the 
subjective and objective reference of the term moral. Some- 
times it is used to denote the external and physical action neces- 
sary to effect the result or end which the agent has in view, and 
again it sometimes denotes the internal act of choice and voli- 
tion. *We condemn fraudulent voting, or bribery, for instance, 
no matter what the motive may be. We do so because of the 
unfairness and injustice done by it, and in this way seem to re- 
gard only the consequence as the measure of wrong. The 
" action " in such a case is either the whole complex act of the 
agent combined with the physical movements necessary to 



1 1 8 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

achieve the result, or it is the latter of the two alone. On the 
other hand, if a man attempts bribery or fraudulent voting, but 
fails in it, we equally condemn the ■" act," though no bad results 
are effected. We take into account the intention or motive. 
Similarly we condemn the desire to do an injury or the feeling 
of malice, and approve humane sympathies. In such cases the 
"act" is nothing but the subjective intention or expression of 
character. Hence, in the one instance, action denotes either the 
whole complex phenomenon of choice, volition, and the external 
movement, or merely this external physical act. In the other it 
denotes only the motive and choice. Here again we have the 
distinction between subjective and objective morality, a distinc- 
tion which is rendered necessary by the frequent miscarriage of 
purposes. 

3. The Difference between the Criterion of Respon- 
sibility and that of Morality. — The standard of responsi- 
bility consists of intelligence, freedom, and conscience, and hence 
is purely subjective. The element which usually receives the 
most emphasis is freedom, and hence responsibility is viewed from 
the position of the cause of action, and not from that of the effect 
or consequence. No man is held responsible for the consequences 
of his conduct unless several conditions are fulfilled : (a) that he 
intends them ; (6) that he knows they are connected with his 
conduct, though they are not the object of it ; (c) that he is not 
culpable for his ignorance. Hence supposing that the conse- 
quence is wholly outside the agent's knowledge and intention, he 
is not responsible. In this conception of the case if morality were 
limited to motives, as in one school, it would coincide with respon- 
sibility. But on the other side, a man's conduct is good or bad 
externally by virtue of its relation to consequences and without 
regard to motives. Even the character of motives is measured 
by the result aimed at, and not by their qualities per se, unless 
we identify them with excellence or perfection of being ; which, 
however, can be done only by a stretch of moral judgment. But 
so far from measuring the worth of conduct externally considered 
by the cause of it we estimate it solely by reference to the end, 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES ' 119 

or the consequence to which it is a means. Consequently, as 
morality and responsibility are sometimes identified, or made to 
coincide with each other, and at other times are distinguished 
by the difference between their criterion, we are obliged to take 
account of different functions in the separate elements of moral 
conduct and character taken as a w T hole. We may then sum- 
marize the relations of these elements to each other and to the 
whole complex of which they are a part. m 

2d. Nature and Relations of the Elements. — Each element 
has its own place and characteristic, and exhibits very complex 
relations. Some are subjective or internal, and some are objec- 
tive or external, and again they may have both references at the 
same time as the summary will indicate. 

1. Motives. — These are subjective in their nature, but may 
be objective in their reference. That is, they are states of mind, 
but are directed, or may be directed, only to some result outside 
of the mind. The judgment of them as moral or immoral must 
depend either upon their relation to this result or upon them as 
qualities of the subject, as excellences or as defects of nature to 
be desired or deplored on their own account. 

2. The Act. — The act may be regarded from two points of 
view ; that is, it may have two elements, each having its own 
characteristic : (a) There is the subjective element or act. This 
is the choice and volition. They reflect the moral nature or 
character of the agent, and may be estimated without regard to 
the consequences, but not without regard to the end. (6) There 
is also the objective element. This is the physical movement or 
effect set into action by the volition, and it reflects the moral 
nature or character of the result. It will be good or bad accord- 
ing to consequences and without regard to intentions. 

3. Result, or Consequence. — This is purely objective in its 
nature, unless we choose to regard a state of the subject like 
pleasure or feeling as the result, which we may in many cases. 
But even then it is objective in the sense that it cannot be di- 
rectly willed, and it is quite as often some effect foreign to the 
consciousness of the agent. Considering it as independent of the 



120 



ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 



end it will be purely external to the mind as objective, and will 
not even Have a subjective reference. Its character, unless 
regarded as a means to a remoter end, will be found wholly in 
itself. Its goodness or badness will express its intrinsic qualities. 
4. The End. — I mention this as incidently a kind of fourth 
element. It partly coincides with results as already indicated. 
It is the result aimed at, but is nothing more, and hence cannot 
denote all the consequences that may be unintentionally con- 
nected with conduct. It is, therefore, objective in its nature, 
though subjective in its reference. A motive we have seen is 
subjective in nature but objective in its reference ; the end is the 
reverse of this, and partakes of a like double nature. It will be 
seen in this conception of it that it coincides partly with motives 
and partly with results. It is, therefore, the point where subjec- 
tive and objective morality coincide, though a perfect and ideal 
world would also include all the consequences that are desirable 
and exclude the undesirable. All these relations may now be 
represented by the following diagram and their character de- 
termined according to one's preferences. Each rectangle will 
represent the whole area of a single element, and all combined 
the total of the references expressed by the idea of morality, as 
conceived by both schools. 



















Mot 


ive 


Choice 


1 Volition 1 


Motion 


1 

End 






, 












Act 











Morality 



The diagram represents both the chronological order and con- 
nection of the several elements, and the reference of the motive 
to the end, which is a logical connection. The act may be any 
one of the three elements, choice, volition, or physical motion, or 
all of them combined. The result may or may not include the 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 121 

end. In one school, morality, or the character of conduct, may 
be measured by nothing except what comes within the free and 
intentional effect, and in the other school it may appear worthy 
or reprehensible according to results independently of the will, 
though the agent may be excused from responsibility. 

Thus far we have done nothing but analyze the conception of 
morality, stating their relations to each other and to the whole. 
But there is more to be done still. We have assumed that the 
nature and meaning of the term "motive" was clear and intel- 
ligible. But this is far from being true. We require to define 
it carefully and to investigate its forms as usually represented 
and thus to determine more carefully the relations of this and 
other elements to the total product known as moral conduct. 
This must be done under the title of the functions of the elements 
in morality. 

VI. FUNCTIONS OF THE ELEMENTS OF MORALITY.— 
There is something more to be determined here than their 
chronological order and logical relations. These are intimately 
connected with their functions, but they do not constitute them. 
The functions of the elements are what they effect, or what they 
contribute in quality to the complex whole which is the subject 
of moral judgment, and this will be found in some cases to con- 
sist of more than one characteristic. Let us examine the func- 
tions of each element more carefully. 

1st. The Motive. — The function of the motive in morality will 
depend wholly upon the conception we take of it. Unfortunately 
it is not a simple conception, as the diagram above seems to 
imply, unless we decide to limit its import as some moralists do. 
But traditional and current views often make it a compound of 
ideas and feelings or impulses, each with very different functions 
in the problem. Hence we must define and analyze it very 
carefully. 

1. Definition of Motives. — A motive is an idea of an 
end to be realized plus the desire for it. In this conception 
we propose to represent two elements as necessary to the nature 
of a motive in the proper sense of the term, a cognitive and an 



122 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

impulsive or dynamic element. Sometimes the term is taken to 
denote only the idea of an end to be attained, and sometimes it is 
applied to the feeling which is supposed to be the propelling 
force of consciousness. The former emphasizes the place and 
functions of reason, and the latter the function of emotion in the 
conception of it. Often it is the rational element that is sup- 
posed to determine the moral nature of the motive and at other 
times the emotional or desiderative element is regarded as the 
moral factor. Thus, wherever reason or rational consciousness, 
as in Plato, the Stoics, the Scholastics, Kant, Butler, and others, 
has been put forward as the principal condition of morality this 
element of the motive seems to have been regarded as the most 
important; nay, as the only one which could make conduct 
moral. On the other hand, wherever emotions, feelings, or 
desires, as opposed to mere ideas, as in the Epicureans, the utili- 
tarians, the aesthetic school, including Hutcheson, Hume, Adam 
Smith, and others, have been regarded as determining the moral 
nature, the dynamic side of consciousness has appeared to be the 
most important. This is reflected in the various impulses and 
instincts, or forms of desire, which are discussed in connection 
with moral problems and regarded as impelling forces acting on 
the will. Thus the passions and desires like anger, hatred, love, 
hunger, thirst, lust, ambition, etc.; are always spoken of as 
" motives " to volition, even when they are described as blind, 
unreflective, or irrational incentives. The agent is supposed to 
be moral or immoral according as he is governed by the better or 
the worse of these passions. 

But I cannot agree to call either element taken alone as a 
" motive," in the true moral sense. Loosely speaking, we may 
consider every necessary antecedent to volition a "motive," 
whether it be ideational or emotional. Conduct under such an 
antecedent cannot be moral in any sense of the term, for the 
reason that if the "motive " be an idea only, it has no directing 
power, and if it be a passion only, it has no rationality. There 
may be much instinctive action under the law of dynamogenesis, 
which is that consciousness, from the very nature of its emotional 



ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 123 

concomitant and coloring, tends to issue in some form of activity. 
But the want of direction to a deliberately chosen end in such 
cases prevents such action from being rational and moral as we 
understand it, whatever we may choose to call it. It may have 
all the desired results of a moral act, but it depends so much 
upon the right conditions for producing the particular conscious- 
ness necessary to effecting the result, and lacks so completely that 
reflective character expressed by the knowledge of what the agent 
is doing, that it cannot be more than objectively moral, while it 
may be subjectively either bad or indifferent. I prefer, therefore, 
to maintain that a true " motive," as the subject of Ethics must 
contain both a cognitive and a dynamic element, or an idea and 
a desire, and that it will be defective in moral character precisely 
in proportion to the absence of one or the other of these elements. 
If consciousness predominates in the ideational element, there 
will be little or no activity, and there can be no morality until 
the will is affected. On the other hand, if desire predominates, 
and reflective tendencies are suppressed by blind passion, action 
will not be moral for the lack of rational control. Morality is 
thus the rational direction of consciousness, and the motive, 
therefore, contains both an ideal and a desiderative or dynamic 
element. This explains why a motive is both a final and an 
efficient cause of conduct, and though it creates certain difficulties 
in discussing the freedom of the will, to recognize the dynamic 
characteristic, the complex nature of it is necessary to render in- 
telligible both the general conceptions of morality, and the scien- 
tific theories of it. 

Before proceeding farther, it may be important to examine the 
distinction sometimes made between the "motive" and the "in- 
tention " of an act. Bentham, for instance, defined a motive as 
that for which an act was done, and an intention as both that for 
which and that in spite of which an act was done. This view 
makes intention more comprehensive than motive, and includes 
it. Others have followed Bentham in the distinction.* It has 

* Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, p. 58. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 
p. 39. 



124 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

some importance for the extent of responsibility in conduct, and 
deserves notice. Mr. Muirhead states it very clearly and briefly. 
"Intention," he says, "is wider than motive. The former may 
be said to include the latter, but not vice versa. For while the 
end or consequent for the sake of which the action is done is, of 
course, intended, it is only part of the intention, and is sometimes 
distinguished from the other part as the ' ultimate intention.' 
On the other hand, the consequences of the intermediate steps as 
the means adopted, though part of the intention, are not part of 
the motive. Thus, the father who punishes his child is said to 
intend the child's good. The good of the child is the motive. 
But he also intends to cause the child pain ; the pain, however, 
though it is part of the intention, cannot in any sense be called 
the motive or reason why he punished him. Or take the case of 
the man who sells his coat to buy a loaf of bread. His motive is 
to buy the bread. It is also part of his intention to do so. It is 
part of his intention also to part with his coat, but this cannot 
in any intelligible sense be the motive of his conduct." Thus 
the motive is the ultimate end sought, while the intention is this 
end plus either the means or a necessary concomitant of it, of 
which we are conscious. Responsibility will, therefore, cover all 
of which we are conscious in the act, no matter whether it is a 
part of the motive or not. 

2. Classification of Motives. — The function of motives 
in determining morality will depend as much upon their kinds as 
upon their nature in general. Morality is often a thing of 
degrees, and is not a simple, absolute, or uniform type of action. 
It is now more and now less pure or perfect. This is deter- 
mined by the various kinds of influences affecting conduct. 
These influences differ in their relation to it, and hence we 
may classify motives in two ways, according as we are viewing 
them as final or as efficient causes of volition, that is, according 
to the two elements we have recognized in motives. I shall 
speak of the two general classes as the cognitive or static 
motives, and the impulsive or dynamic motives, though they 
differ only in the degree of prominence given to one or the other 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 



125 



element in motives at large. Then the first class may be sub- 
divided according as the ends sought are subordinate or ultimate, 
immediate or remote. The second class is the same as given in 
the psychology of the motive powers of the mind. The follow- 
ing table represents the classification : 

r f 

Subordinate Ends 



Static 



Ultimate Ends 



Impulse 



Dynamic \ Instinct 



Eeason 



Fame. 

Wealth. 

Power. 

Knowledge. 

Art, etc. 

Perfection, 
appiness. 

Obedience, or Formal Law, etc. 
f Passion. 
\ Pleasure, etc. 

{Hunger. 
Thirst. 
Sex, etc. 
f Prudence or Interest. 
\ Conscience or Duty. 



fPe 

LL 
[ Ot 



The first set or the static motives represent different degrees 
of morality in conduct according to the scale of values attaching 
to the different possible ends of action. There can, of course, be 
but one ultimate end, but I have mentioned several in order to 
recognize the standpoint of different theories. But while the 
moral worth of the static motives may not be the same for all, 
responsibility is the same, other things being equal, because 
this depends upon mere consciousness, and not upon any degree 
of value. On the other hand, the dynamic series represents both 
different degrees of responsibility and different degrees of moral- 
ity, as will be developed when. we come to the problem involved 
in this question. 

The function of the particular ends in conduct will be exam- 
ined when we consider the theories of Ethics where they will be 
shown to illustrate the grounds upon which morality rests. At 
present we wish to discuss the relation of the dynamic aspect of 
motives to conduct. These must be taken in their order. 

3. Impulse. — It is not easy to define impulse exactly. The 
term has done service for so many different conceptions in the 
course of' history that any definition which happens to run 



126 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

counter to one of them is sure to give dissatisfaction. On the 
one hand, it has often been spoken of as a blind and irrational 
tendency to certain kinds of action; where it is so contrasted 
with intelligent influence and initiatives that the impression 
often gains a foothold that it is an unconscious stimulus to 
action. Thus hunger, thirst, sex, or other natural' appetites 
have been spoken of as impulses, partly on the ground of their 
irrational character and partly on the ground that their crav- 
ings do not point to any definite object apart from the satisfac- 
tion of the appetite, and they do not even seem to express any 
knowledge of this end until experience has shown their meaning. 
They are cravings in the dark, so to speak. Thus Plato con- 
trasted them with reason and created the psychological tendency 
to regard them as natural momenta in the direction of certain 
actions, and so opposed to rational considerations. On the other 
hand, the term is sometimes used to denote conscious but ca- 
pricious and lawless action according to the impression of the 
moment, and is again contrasted in this way with rational con- 
duct, which is supposed to be regular and according to law. 
The two different ideas expressed by it, then, have been appetite 
and lawless volition, with a tendency probably for the two to 
shade off into each other insensibly. These, however, represent 
their typical forms. 

It is the second of these which comes nearer to the concep- 
tion which we wish here to take of impulse, the former being 
more closely allied to instinct as it will be treated presently. 
Reflex, automatic, and all influences to muscular activity that 
are unaccompanied by consciousness are to be discarded from 
the conception of it because they are not subject to either praise 
or blame. Impulse we shall treat as at least accompanied by 
consciousness of the direction of the conduct which it initiates, 
but it represents no law of adaptation to the order of the world. 
In this respect, the appetites, whether organic or of the higher 
order, do not resemble what passes for impulse in ordinary par- 
lance. Hence we shall define impulse as that influence which 
represents the momentary and .unreflective activity of the mind. 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 127 

There are other characteristics and connections of it, but the 
momentary and unreflective feature is sufficient to distinguish it 
from the other forms of volitional antecedents. We can then 
illustrate it, and show . what an influence it exercises upon con- 
duct. 

One of the best illustrations of impulse is the whole class of 
passions, such as anger, extreme fear, love, hate, indignation, 
lust and lasciviousness in their voluptuous forms, alcoholism, 
and the same characteristic is found in all the capricious actions 
indicating choice on the spur of the moment, and without re- 
flection upon possible remoter consequences than the one aimed 
at. A man may strike another suddenly out of anger and re- 
pent at leisure of his rashness. Under sudden fright we may 
shout for aid when calm self-control would insure us greater 
security. Love is proverbially blind, by which is meant, not 
that the action which it dictates is blind, but only that the 
passion is too strong for care and deliberation, and prompts 
action for immediate satisfaction. Hatred, malice, and revenge, 
when they are aroused, inspire conduct without any regard to re- 
mote consequences ; and so with the other regular passions. But 
impulse is shown perhaps more clearly in the caprices and irreg- 
ularities of life than in the common vices, and it may occur in 
connection with emotions or feelings, having per se no bad 
character, but which under restraint and regulation might be 
regarded as marking meritorious qualities. If a man act under 
a sudden impulse of pity or sympathy, and give alms on the 
street without inquiry and without due regard to the consequences 
to the beneficiary, he is acting under a motive which must be 
called an impulse as defined. If again he goes off at a sugges- 
tion upon some subject, changes his resolution the next hour, 
and as suddenly chooses some other course of action ; if on one 
day he indulges in a fit of drunkenness, the next day reforms, 
and enters on a definite career of business, as suddenly out of 
some whim of dislike changes this resolution, say from the inten- 
tion to be a lawyer to that of being a physician, and so reflects 
during his life,. or during any considerable period of time, this 



128 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

vacillating character, he is said to be a creature of impulse 
merely because he is disposed to act upon the idea of the 
moment, and without reflection. Whenever such action is dis- 
cerned it is properly described by that term. What it exhibits 
besides this is the utter lack of adjustment to the order of 
things. It is a tendency to seek gratification at the expense of 
unregarded consequences, and thus takes no account of the 
environment which regulates the individual's welfare and develop- 
ment. In fact it is not adjustment to environment at all, unless 
we should say that its gratification depends upon changes in the 
external world as irregular and capricious as its own action. It 
aims only at personal good, and takes no account of external 
law and order beyond the realization of some immediate result. 
It can represent only a possible adjustment to an environment 
as variable and inconstant as itself. 

We may now summarize the characteristics of impulse as 
a motive to a certain kind of conduct : (a) It is capricious and 
irregular; (6) it is unrenective or non-deliberative; (c) it is 
momentary and passionate in its actions ; (d) it neglects remote 
consequences for immediate ends; (e) it represents misadjust- 
ment to a fixed or constant environment, and a possible adjust- 
ment to a variable and lawless order or environment ; (/) it 
probably represents a predominance of the dynamic or dynamo- 
genie elements in consciousness. 

From these various characteristics it is apparent that the main 
function of impulse seems to be what the very term implies, 
namely, an impelling tendency, though it is possible to exagger- 
ate this character of it. It obtains the credit of this peculiarity 
from the readiness of any given suggestion to explode into a 
volition, and it undoubtedly illustrates a very close resemblance 
to that nexus between mechanical events which makes the ante- 
cedent the direct cause of the consequent. It is, therefore, only 
natural to conceive it as dynamic or efficient in contrast with de- 
liberative consciousness which seems to have *no efficiency what- 
ever. A general t} r pe of impulse has generally been taken from 
the actions of animal existence, where we seldom find deliber- 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 129 

ative habits of any kind. Their motives are the impulses of the 
moment, the immediate action of every desire that possesses any 
reasonable amount of freedom for its indulgence. 

It will not be difficult, after these remarks, to determine the 
moral character of impulse as a motive. Of course we might 
open the whole question whether motives of any kind ever 
possess either merit or demerit. Bentham and others claim that 
they never possess either quality. But they are here speaking 
of them absolutely and out of relation to an end or result, and 
it is not necessary to assert this extreme view in order to main- 
tain their moral character. General usage approves or dis- 
approves of motives, regards them as moral, non-moral, or 
immoral whatever its reasons may be, and for this account it 
pronounces judgment upon the character of impulse as an 
expression of character, which is as much an object of moral 
admiration or censure as any result of conduct can be. Taking 
this tendency in the main as just, we would only say thatr 
impulse is not especially a moral characteristic, or it can be this 
in so slight a degree as to weaken the value of Ethics to recog- 
nize the fact at all. It is too capricious, irregular, and unreflec- 
tive in its nature to provoke the respect we attach to morality. 
What is moral has something of the nature of laiv. It is a fixed 
and rational way of acting, adjustment to an external order, 
equilibrium of internal and conflicting forces, and the supremacy 
of the law of conscience, which imposes an inflexible duty upon 
the will, if it be nothing but the formal intention to act accord- 
ing to good- will itself. But impulse has nothing of such a law 
about it. It represents no steady object of pursuit, but only 
a wayward tendency to be independent of law or limitations. It 
is freedom without rationality, and even when it represents what 
we call the better instincts, such as sympathy, pity, or affection, 
we do not admire it for its action. We simply congratulate our- 
selves that it has not gone wrong on the occasion. But we 
expect no consistency from it, and no sacrifice of self to the 
larger order of the world or to the remoter goods of life. It is 
simply the incarnation of lawlessness, the very antithesis to 



130 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

all the higher degrees of morality, and can gain only a passing 
tribute when its fortune carries it into the performance of an 
accidental good. We like too well to see law, order, and char- 
acter, in the will as well as in the world, to sanctify impulse with 
moral qualities. 

4. Instinct. — Instinct is quite as difficult to define as im- 
pulse. General usage is perhaps even more loose in its practice 
regarding the term than in the case of impulse. In the first 
place, it has been used to describe "blind and unconscious" 
acts, as they have been called, which in reality meant, not that 
the action was wholly unaccompanied by consciousness, but that 
there was no knowledge of the end to which the various actions 
actually tended. It was an easy step from this conception of 
instinct to that which denoted merely mechanical movements. 
If consciousness did not initiate, but only accompanied the action, 
it was no more responsible for it than for reflex or automatic 
movements, so that the impelling cause was outside of it. This 
idea was reinforced by the Cartesian dualism, which made all the 
actions of the animal world, called instinctive, automatic in their 
nature and source. Descartes regarded animals as unconscious 
automata, and their actions instinctive, though imitating the ad- 
justments of intelligence. Mr. Spencer regards instincts as com- 
plex reflexes. Other evolutionists speak of them as " inherited 
habits " or " lapsed intelligence." The last conception of them 
is in reality a theory of the way they came to exist rather than 
a notion of their manner of action. Still other writers speak and 
think of them as representing a certain grade of intelligence, as 
conscious though not rational in the proper sense of the term. 
There is, perhaps, one characteristic common to all these con- 
ceptions, and it is that instinct denotes a certain fixed disposi- 
tion or organic tendency of the individual. Under this con- 
ception the appetites are often called instincts, and so with any 
persistent inclination which shows no adaptability to change of 
circumstances. 

We should summarize these various conceptions before giving 
our own account of the matter. Instinct has, therefore, variously 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 131 

been conceived to be — (a) wholly unconscious and automatic 
impulses ; (6) actions accompanied by consciousness, but not 
initiated by it ; (c) conscious but not rational actions in the 
highest sense ; (c?) complex reflexes ; (e) organic tendencies 
reflecting natural as opposed to volitional causes. In all these 
the original object was to distinguish between rational actions 
and those which at least resembled them in many particulars 
and yet could not be identified with them. Hence, where we 
find the law of continuity between the lowest and the highest 
forms of conduct, as it is illustrated from reflex to rational 
actions, instincts and impulses intervening between the two 
extremes, it becomes of importance to distinguish their nature 
very carefully, especially when we remember that some writers, 
like Leslie Stephen and many evolutionists, speak of our rational 
and moral desires as instincts. Such usage only shows that, in 
spite of the traditional contrast and antithesis between instinct 
and intelligence, there is often no clear distinction between them. 
Hence we must either make that distinction clear or abandon it 
altogether. 

Such a distinction can be drawn without making the two 
conceptions mutually exclusive in all their characteristics. In 
fact man's nature is such that all the various influences affecting 
his actions, from the lowest to the highest, interpenetrate each 
other and overlap. No classification can be given which will 
exclude one impulse in all its characteristics and relations from 
every other. They often merge into each other. The organic 
appetites show affiliations with instinct, on the one hand, and 
with impulses, on the other, in that they are constitutional ten- 
dencies, and may develop into passions with irregular indulgence. 
They may also become so fully subordinated to rational control 
that they can be spoken of as natural desires only with the 
qualification that they have no specific object for their craving. 
Again, the passions may become so fixed and persistent a ten- 
dency in the individual, though capricious in their manifesta- 
tions as to resemble the predisposition and organic stability of 
instincts. And still further actions often called instinctive may 



132 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

be so influenced by the accompaniment of consciousness and may 
so thoroughly resemble intelligent adjustments of conduct that 
they overlap rational actions. But in spite of all this continuity 
and interpenetration of functions they can be radically distin- 
guished in certain particulars. The doctrine of Ethics is 
interested in the distinction because of the question of responsi- 
bility, and because of the different kinds and degrees of merit 
attributed to human actions. Hence we shall undertake to 
define instinct with these facts in view, .and at the same time to 
avoid the inconsistencies of current and common usage. 

Instinct, as related to ethical problems as well as the psycho- 
logical, we shall define as a constant and organic tendency to 
certain actions, representing an adjustment to a definite and fixed 
environment The full meaning of this conception "with addi- 
tional characteristics will be brought out by its further develop- 
ment. In the meantime we wish to concentrate attention upon 
its organic and more or less fixed nature, together with the 
adjustment which it represents, as the true characteristics that 
are most important for Ethics. In its highest development it 
may at least be accompanied by consciousness, or even con- 
sciousness and organic impulse may combine in reference to a 
common end. 

The most frequent types of what are called instincts are cases 
of bees building their honeycomb, spiders their webs, birds 
their nests, ants their homes and practicing their peculiar forms 
of industry, the migration of birds, the incubation and care of 
young, domestic affection, and a thousand other forms of con- 
duct. The bee in building its honeycomb adopts the most per- 
fect form for economy of space and material, namely, the hex- 
agonal ; but it can hardly be supposed to know this fact. All 
its actions show a mechanical-like regularity in this reference. 
The spider's web always takes a form peculiar to each species, 
and the same with birds' nests, even when we cannot assume any 
influence from experience. In all these it is difficult, if not impos- 
sible, to suppose that the creatures know why they perform their 
actions. It seems as certain, also, that they do not know the 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 133 

ultimate end which their actions serve ; and it may be doubtful 
whether they have any purpose or end at all. Their mechanical- 
like nature and regularity seems to exclude all intelligence and 
so to distinguish their actions from rational conduct. But this 
distinction can be exaggerated, as indicated in the admission that 
instinct may grade off into automatic actions in oue direction 
and intelligent actions in the other, so far as the characteristic 
of consciousness is concerned. The main peculiarity of them is 
the fact that they represent a natural and organic tendency in a 
particular direction, which remains more or less fixed, often 
resisting all influences to modify them. This is the subjective 
aspect of instinct and represents a tendency to spontaneity, that 
is, spontaneous action independent of disturbance or stimulus 
from the outside. It thus indicates a law of internal action. 
Its objective characteristic is its adjustment to a constant envi- 
ronment. Conceived as an "inherited habit" it would require 
that constancy in nature which would render its exercise pos- 
sible. It is true that environment often changes, but instinct 
very generally displays resistance to this change. It is more 
especially adapted to the fixity of the external world in order 
to act on the line of least resistance. Hence, it is an organic 
tendency adapted to a certain fixity in nature. Thus the build- 
ing of nests where they can be put to no use, the beaver build- 
ing a dam in its cage where there is no water, geese trying to 
hatch stones or " dummy " eggs, the young of animals trying to 
suck everything that comes within the reach of their mouths 
when hungry, the setter showing its peculiar habits without any 
education, etc., all these are illustrations of organic dispositions 
that do not wait for their appropriate stimulus for exercise, and 
are no doubt called instincts for the very reason that they do 
not seem to show the adaptation of intelligent motives. 

It is not meant here to say or to imply that instinct is invari- 
able ; for. modern observation shows that it is modifiable, at least 
to some extent. But it shows less variability, or varies less easily 
than intelligent actions. Instinct is conservative, and yields to 
external influences with considerable resistance. Hence its pre- 



134 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

dominant tendency is to be constant and to act according to an 
environment to which it is organically adjusted. This is prob- 
ably due to its complex nature. Many of the instincts are very 
complicated arrangements, and grow out of complexity of struc- 
ture and function, all the elements acting in harmony either be- 
cause of long experience or because of inherited momentum from 
previous experience, and thus make it difficult for the variation 
of one element without the simultaneous variation of all others. 
Hence instinct contrasts with impulse in this respect, is regular 
and constant in its activity, and less adapted to a variable envi- 
ronment. Thus, to state its objective characteristic, it may be 
said to be an organic adjustment to a constant, but a misadjust- 
ment to a varying, environment. We may, therefore, summarize 
its several characteristics before pointing out its ethical value : 
(a) It is an organic or constitutional tendency to action ; (b) it 
is spontaneous in its exercise, or represents internal stimulus as 
opposed to the external ; (c) it is fixed and regular in its activity ; 
(d) it is complex in its organization and exercise ; (e) it is adjusted 
to a definite end whether conscious or not ; (/) it is preadapted to 
a fixed but not to a changing environment. These several char- 
acteristics define a complex phenomenon without raising the usual 
question, whether instinct is intelligent or not. In regard to 
that matter it is proper to say that I do not think consciousness 
is either always absent or always present with instinctive inclina- 
tions. It is probable that in its lowest forms instinct is wholly 
unattended by any consciousness of the tendency of its actions ; 
that in the second stage it is only accompanied by consciousness, 
more or less clear of its object, and in the third stage conscious- 
ness begins to usurp its functions by subordinating it or by 
usurping its place. Hence it displays in this way various de- 
grees of approximation to the higher orders of activity. 

In regard to its function "in the theory and conception of 
morality, its importance is derived from this very peculiarity as 
well as several other features of it. First, it resembles the moral 
springs in the characteristic of regularity and law which it shows. 
Morality must have this quality whatever else it must have. 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 135 

Instinct shows that fixity and stability of direction which we 
always expect in moral character. In the second place, it shows 
direction and adaption to a remoter end than does pure impulse. 
Indeed we might compare impulse and instinct by saying that 
the former looks only to an immediate and subordinate end 
without regarding a remoter one, while the latter, whether con- 
scious or not, is adapted to the remoter end. This very com- 
plexity of organism which enables the individual to live for and 
to realize remoter ends has a value, which, if it does not confer 
morality upon the actions it initiates, as we understand morality, 
exhibits a better objective order of creation, and represents 
something which morality can well afford to imitate in its regu- 
larity and teleology. Stability of character is an essential, 
though not the only essential quality of virtue, and instinct fur- 
nishes this characteristic. In the third place, in so far as instinct 
may be accompanied by consciousness it approximates again the 
stage of moral conduct. Regularity and concomitant intelli- 
gence give it a higher order of merit than purely unconscious 
and automatic actions. Lastly, its adjustment to a definite end 
and a constant environment give it both a subjective and an 
objective value which allies it very closely to the objective 
aspects of morality. That is to say, it embodies both a subjective 
and an objective regularity, which are important elements in 
moral conduct. Instincts may be regular and yet bad, and ad- 
justed to bad ends. This is not to be questioned, and they will 
be bad precisely in their proportion to their fixity and wrong 
adjustment. But in spite of this they show the constitutional 
and organic character which we wish for perfect morality and 
which is a sign of some excellence wherever found, though 
requiring to be supplemented by rational and moral elements as 
defined by right adjustment and conscientiousness. Hence in- 
stinct represents some advancement upon the pure impulses. If 
the agent's organic desires are in the direction of right ends we 
can trust and admire him, whether he appreciates the morality 
of those ends or not, more than a creature of impulses who shows 
no adjustment to such ends at all. This is the reason that we 



136 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

place such a being upon a higher level of excellence than a law- 
less creature, though he may not answer to our conception of 
moral as represented by rationality. We desire an agent to be at 
least constant, and if that constancy or stability of character is 
marked by correctness of objective direction we may regard its 
conduct as at least objectively moral, and only wish that the 
agent might be endowed with better perfections ; that he could 
be as moral as his action. But until instinct becomes wholly 
subordinated to intelligence it does not reach the highest degree 
of moral excellence, no matter how true it may be to the moral 
ends of life. It is simply a tendency which we can rely upon to 
act uniformly in a variable order, at least generally, but shows 
less perfect adjustment than reason. It lacks the subjective 
characteristic of morality in all its forms, except the attribute 
of regularity. 

5. Reason. — This is also an ambiguous term. It has a log- 
ical, a psychological, and a moral import. Its logical meaning 
is its ratiocinative application. Here it means the power of 
drawing inferences, or of reasoning from premises to conclusions. 
If the premises are general truths and the conclusions particular 
ones, the reasoning is deductive ; if they are facts and the con- 
clusion is a general truth, or some probable fact containing more 
than the premises, the reasoning is inductive. With this mean- 
ing of the term Ethics has nothing to do, though as a science it 
may employ the ratiocinative faculty, and in framing definite 
rules for life we may do the same. But it is not the source of 
motives for the will when taken in this sense. The psychologi- 
cal import of the term is that it denotes the power of direct or 
intuitive insight into certain facts and truths; for instance, that 
pleasure is desirable, that the truth cannot be denied when per- 
ceived, that every cause has its effect and vice versa, that two 
and two make four, etc. This function of reason has its place 
in Ethics in determining the ultimate good or the special ends 
of conduct that present themselves for consideration. It is 
cognitive but not impulsive in its nature, as is apparent from 
describing it as intuitive, The moral application of the term is 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 137 

that which denotes the mind's power over natural desire. Hence 
in the field of Ethics reason is the regulative and legislative power 
of the mind controlling and directing the various inclinations to 
some intelligible and ideal end. Ever since the time of Plato, 
who made it the sovereign over the passions and impulses, this 
has been the general conception of it in Ethics. It is important 
to remark, however, that its true function in morality is both cog- 
nitive and directive. Plato included both these elements in his 
conception of it. The cognitive was its function as conscious- 
ness of an end and opposed it to desire {tniQvjxia) and 
impulse (Ovjj.03), which could form no conception of their 
object until reason supervened to do so. This view of the case 
survived as a permanent contribution to the problem, and hence 
moral reason has for its first function to know ivhat the ultimate 
object of a volition is in any particular case, and how it can be 
attained without entailing any evil consequences. But this 
function alone does not take reason beyond mere prudence or 
self-interest. Hence the second function ascribed to it is the 
formation of an imperative ideal which shall act as a constraint 
upon irrational desires, impulses, and passions, and a motive for 
its own realization. This is the legislative and directing power 
of reason as contrasted with mere knowledge, though knowledge 
must accompany it, and it is embodied in the modern concep- 
tion of conscience, which supervenes upon prudence without set- 
ting it aside. 

Having given a definition and a brief outline of the function 
of reason in conduct, it will be in place to describe and illustrate 
its operations more fully. We should, perhaps, first note an ob- 
jection to the use of the term at all in the moral sphere. We 
have found that moral phenomena are concerned with motives 
and actions. Actions are the function of the will, and it is 
sometimes said that reason cannot act as a motive to volition. 
This position is especially urged by Hume, who maintains that 
only the " passions " (Hume's term for emotions) can move the 
will, while it is the business of reason merely to know truth. This 
objection is true enough from the ratiocinative or logical con- 



138 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

ception of " reason," and also from its merely cognitive function. 
Mere perception is not a motive power. But as the real ques- 
tion in the case is only a matter of definition and practical 
usage, it is fair to use the term to denote moral functions, pro- 
vided we do not intend by it to attribute dynamic power to ab- 
stract ideas. It is, no doubt, unfortunate that custom has em- 
ployed so equivocal a term, but long-established usage cannot be 
set aside by a difficulty of that kind, unless a proper term is 
found to take the place of an objectionable one. Hence, as long 
as this requisite is not supplied, the only alternative is to define 
the sense in which " reason " is employed to denote moral func- 
tions, and refuse to be troubled by a different import in the logical 
field. Moreover, we have already seen that the term " motive" 
in Ethics does not mean merely dynamic power, but that it de- 
notes at the same time an idea of an end, an ideational object. 
We even found that some moralists used it to denote only this 
object and so made it a purely cognitive function, excluding the 
impulsive element. With this conception of " motive," the term 
" reason " could well be employed to supply it, and no one could 
exclude it from moral phenomena without first limiting the notion 
of " motive " to suit the purpose. But since motives are complex, 
involving cognitive and dynamic functions combined, and since 
the term " reason " often denotes the whole mind as occupied with 
a particular object, we may well use it without doing any vio- 
lence to clear thinking for describing the relation of the man to 
conduct, whose character is so dependent upon knowledge. It 
will then be largely a matter of illustration to determine what is 
meant by the term, and what functions are ascribed to the mind 
so considered. 

We call conduct reasonable when a man acts in full view of 
his own and others' best interests. If a man yields to intemper- 
ance we say he has acted unreasonably, because he obeys a pass- 
ing impulse or passion and does not calculate the ultimate injury 
to follow a momentary gratification. An impulse acts, as we say, 
without thinking. Reason in its relation to volition thinks or 
reflects and seeks to determine whether the remote consequences 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 1 39 

may not bring more evil than the present good may compensate 
for. A reasonable man weighs the question of means and ends, 
brings all his knowledge to bear upon the case, and seeks 
to ascertain what is best or what is right, and acts accordingly, 
instead of "going it" blindly or yielding to the first instigations 
of desire. He looks before and after, determining his relation to 
all the contingencies in the case which might involve his happi- 
ness, his character, or his perfection. He will not be intemperate 
if he knows what painful consequences are involved, he will not 
commit murder if he knows the penalty for it. It is true that a 
man may act against the counsel of conscience or reason, but he 
is not reasonable when he does so. We call him reasonable when 
he perceives and acts according to the monitions of his best 
knowledge, keeps his passions under control, considers the har- 
mony of his life, chooses the highest ideal of which he is capable, 
and pursues it with a single eye to its realization. " Reason," 
says Mr. Leslie Stephen, " whatever its nature, is the faculty 
which enables us to act with a view to the distant and the 
future. Consequently, in so far as a man is reasonable, he is 
under the influence of motives which would not be otherwise 
operative. The immediate bodily appetite is held in check by a 
number of motives to which only the reasoning being is acces- 
sible." In all this, reason means more than mere insight. It is a 
general term for the union of insight and emotion in the right 
direction. In this way it gains motive power, which it must have 
in order to regulate the competition of individual desires. It 
balances the various interests of the subject, decides the highest 
and enjoins the pursuit of it, not merely as an interest, but as 
a duty, when it has that quality. There must be a capacity for 
this function, call it what we will, and as reason was the earliest 
term to denote the unity of all the individual functions of 
consciousness, it was only proper and natural that a capacity 
comprising the conjoint action of insight, emotion, and legisla- 
tion, and thus presiding over to regulate all the anarchic tenden- 
cies of the mind, should obtain that name. 

But aside from further justification of the term it is most 



140 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

important to observe the specific functions ascribed to reason, 
and to compare them with those of impulse and instinct. We 
have already indicated very clearly that they are complex, 
though they act together. The first of these functions may be 
called self-consciousness, or deliberative consciousness, in distinc- 
tion from the unreflecting consciousness of impulse or passion 
and the merely concomitant consciousness of instinct. We do 
not mean consciousness of self in its technical philosophic sense, 
but the reflective turn of mind which stops to consider whether 
the course offered the will is the right one or not. This is a 
function that will overcome both the recklessness of passion and 
the automatism of instinct. Amid the temptations of dis- 
honesty, of injustice, of intemperance, of voluptuous habits, of 
greed and ambition, and of all other moral distortions, this dis- 
position to deliberate and reflect upon the possibilities of self is 
the first condition of restraining and directing either the 
strength or the caprice of desire. We may regard its dynamic 
quality as of the nature of desire itself, but directed to a differ- 
ent object than that of passionate desire, and modified by the 
cool and reflective agency of reason. But whether we choose to 
regard it as a higher desire, or as a distinct and independent 
function, its essence is one of self-conscious reflection in the first 
stage, a deliberative inhibition upon impulse and instinct, grow- 
ing out of better knowledge and experience, and utilizing the 
memory of past consequences in similar emergencies to act with 
foresight, prudence, self-sacrifice, and it may be conscientious- 
ness, in the future. This first characteristic, however, distin- 
guishes reason more particularly from passion, which may be 
conscious but not deliberative, than it does from instinct, whose 
chief quality is persistence and strength whether conscious or not. 
It is, therefore, the second function of reason which distin- 
guishes it more clearly from instinct. Instinct does not delib- 
erate; but if it did it would be reason, and if it were only 
accompanied by deliberation, this process would avail nothing 
by virtue of the priority and superior momentum of instinct. 
The force of instinct, as usually conceived and defined, lies in its 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 141 

not being conscious, or clearly conscious of its own end, or the 
direction of its impulsion. But this second function of reason 
supplies this very desideratum. Its object can be truly called 
an end. Reason knows why it acts and what means it must 
employ to attain its ends. It is not only conscious of what is 
going on, but is conscious of the destiny of its action and can 
direct it to that result. Impulse lives for the present, though 
conscious, and takes no account of experience or of possible con- 
sequences. Instinct is adjusted to remoter ends, of which it can 
give no account, and employs means whose full significance it 
does not know. But reason utilizes experience and is conscious 
of both immediate and remoter ends, and thereby acquires for 
conduct the. title of intelligent, and when it contains a course of 
action on the ground of its imperative worth, it adds moral to 
intelligent quality. 

A third characteristic of reason as a function in the direction 
of conduct is its power of adjustability. In this it is superior to 
both impulse and instinct. Impulse, we found, would require a 
world without any unity and without any connection between 
immediate and remote consequences in order that the subject 
might even survive in it. It is, therefore, wholly unadjusted to 
a fixed order, but only to a changeable one. On the other hand, 
we found instinct to be adjusted to a constant environment and 
out of harmony with a variable one. Now, it is the nature of 
environment to be partly constant and partly variable. Some 
of the world's forces, be they physical or social, are more or less 
permanent, or at least so articulated as to work toward or to 
favor a common end. The best life requires such adaptation, 
self-control, and sacrifice as will guide the subject through many 
a conflict to the ceaseless purpose running through the ages. 
Other influences are , constantly changing ; the seasons, the 
climate, the character of the soil, industrial and social condi- 
tions, age, health, knowledge, taste, and a thousand other ex- 
ternal agencies are changing from time to time, varying a man's 
interests and duties, with every locality, age, or circumstance. 
All these require adjustability, and as environment is neither 



142 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

wholly constant nor wholly variable, the highest development 
requires a capacity for flexible adjustment. This is precisely 
what reason supplies. It is the power of adjustment to environ- 
ment as a whole, at least so far as that environment comes within 
the ken of consciousness. It modifies conduct when the varia- 
tion of conditions nullifies the obligation or removes the expe- 
dience of old laws and habits, and it holds the will to a regular 
and constant life when passion might lead it to ignore the 
eternal. Keason is thus adjustment to both aspects of environ- 
ment. It makes rational concessions to change and to difference 
of circumstances, while it is unyielding when remoter good 
requires the sacrifice of an immediate pleasure. It thus shows 
its freedom and independence in both directions. It does not 
yield to every outward and capricious stimulus, and it does not 
blindly follow in the line of habit and instinct when survival 
and development require adjustment. Hence we may compare 
it with the other motives to action by remarking either how it 
supplants them or how it adds reflective and deliberative con- 
sciousness to both of them, giving it power to resist impulsive 
adjustment to the irregularities of life and to modify the 
mechanical fatalism of instinct. Impulse represents the pre- 
dominance of external influence and change in the determination 
of conduct, freedom being found only in accepting the offer of 
gratification. On the other hand, instinct represents the 
predominance of spontaneity or internal influence, freedom 
consisting, only in the exemption from external compulsion. 
But reason is the adjustment of both of these conditions, giving 
greater independence of external environment and less fatalism 
to organic functions and internal tendencies. It is, therefore, the 
point where all the conflicting forces of the mind meet and. 
attain their unity, completing the adjustment of the individual, 
which is so important for his development and perfection. 

This rational nature as a motive and regulative function takes 
two forms, as already indicated, Prudence or Interest and Con- 
science or the Sense of Duty. The difference between them 
requires to be carefully stated. 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 143 

(a) Prudence.— Literally understood, prudence is simply fore- 
sight. It is the function of reason which has been most fully 
described as looking before and after, taking account of expe- 
rience and consequences, and directing the agent through the 
conflicts of desire to a course of conduct which will best serve 
his interests in the long run. A man is prudent when he saves 
money against scarcity, famine, sickness, and old age, or any con- 
tingency in which he might be cut off from self-support. He is 
prudent when he resists the temptation to a fit of intemperance 
or debauchery in order to preserve his health. He is prudent 
when he protects all his resources against waste and loss. He is 
prudent again when he sacrifices an immediate interest for a re- 
mote and greater one ; when he prefers the respect of the commu- 
nity to its indifference or dislike ; when he prefers honesty for the 
sake of its gain ; when he accepts an insult and injury rather than 
conduct a futile quest for justice. In all this the agent acts 
with reference to the greatest good to be obtained for himself. 
But he does not sacrifice his own good to that of others. He 
may sacrifice something, but it will be with more than a com- 
pensation in return. A man may pay a debt at a sacrifice 
before it matures only to establish his credit, not to fulfill 
an unconditional obligation. He may even sacrifice a desire 
and act for the good of others, but it will u t be with the good 
of others in view. He will have primary reference to the 
compensation to be received for the sacrifice. Prudence is, 
therefore, looking to one's own interest, though seeing that 
no friction occurs with the good of others. It is thus pri- 
marily and only individualistic in its motive, though it may 
be objectively altruistic ; that is, in its effects. But it does not 
take on the character of obligation, or a desire to limit one's own 
freedom and action in behalf of the welfare or the equal freedom 
of others, and hence is not marked by the sense of morality, or of 
right and wrong, as distinguished from good and bad. "Inter- 
est," says one writer, " means what is good for an individual con- 
sidered from his own point of view, and without regard to similar 
claims of other individuals. It is the maximum of happiness or 



144 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

satisfaction which he can secure under his conditions. By 
' maximum happiness ' is meant that distribution of satisfaction 
or of energies which produce them, any deviation from which on 
either side implies a less fullness of life. Interest, though a dif- 
ferent conception from right or [moral] goodness, is therefore a 
conception of the same rank or order. In the first place interest 
is not mere momentary satisfaction, but implies a reference both 
forwards and backwards to the whole range of a person's wants. 
It is something permanent, something which implies orderly ar- 
rangement." But whatever its results and whatever adjust- 
ment to others' rights and interests the exercise of prudence in- 
volves, its motive and primary reference is to the individual 
that practices it. 

This conception of conduct does not reach the stage of moral- 
ity proper, or perfect virtue, for the reason that it does not aim 
equally at the good of others. It is conduct having a different 
and a higher merit than passion and instinct, simply because it is 
intelligent and conserves life under complex conditions better than 
these motives can possibly do. It is conduct that is careful not 
to conflict with morality, but does not aim at realizing purposely 
either the subjective or the objective aspect of it. It will con- 
form to objective morality, though mainly in its negative aspect 
of not doing positive harm. It nevertheless contains an 
object which may be called moral and ought to be respected as 
such, namely, the higher possibilities as against the temptation 
of passion and momentary satisfaction, and larger freedom than 
is possible in the mechanical fatuity of instinct. But it does 
not reach the level of conscience, which moves the will by other 
considerations than interest alone and transfigures character 
as well as conduct. 

(b) Conscience. — We shall consider only one aspect of con- 
science at present : a detailed analysis of it will come up in its 
proper place. Here we are concerned with its motive function 
and the quality which it bestows upon volition. It represents 
more specifically the moral function of reason and defines the 
constraint of the sense of right and duty upon the will, impelling 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 145 

it to respect an unconditional ideal. Prudence is mainly insight 
into the most expedient of a series of conflicting alternatives and 
simply changes the objective, but not the subjective, direction of 
desire. On the other hand, conscience is mainly propulsion, 
combined with a sense of rightness and an entire subordination 
of personal to general good. It does not admit free alterna- 
tives, but selects one course as having a value and importance 
which not only put all others into the shade, but exclude them 
from consideration. It may involve the same external actions 
as prudence and the same objective results, but its motive is not 
individualistic, while it looks at the result as having a value 
apart from the mere interest of the subject and sets it up as an 
object of reverence and of unconditional duty. 

The part which conscience plays in morality, besides overcom- 
ing passion and personal desire, is an important one. It subor- 
dinates individual action to the whole consciously. Prudence 
merely sees that it does not come into conflict with universal in- 
terest, while conscience sees that it serves this end directly. It 
will even sacrifice an individual good for that of others, the 
family, the tribe, or the state. It particularly insists upon 
action according to law, a law of will as well as of results. Its 
form is regularity and its motive a command. In the former 
quality it opposes impulse and resembles instinct, but in the 
latter it transcends both of them. It gives special sanctity to the 
will or volition, though it may not modify the nature of results. 
It is on this account that so many moralists have exalted the 
motive above everything else in right conduct. Prudence may 
have something of caprice in it by virtue of the necessity for a 
larger adaptation to a changing environment, and of the con- 
stant reference to self. It is, in other words, more in danger of 
transgression, as it is only the modification and control of 
impulse without moralizing its object. On the other hand, con- 
science, as a motive, has much if not all of the constancy of 
instinct and does for the character of the subject what correct- 
ness of judgment does for the result of conduct. It is not only a 
conscious choice. of the right result, but it is aiming at that re- 



146 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

suit on its own account, whatever reference it may have to the sub- 
ject itself. It will not conflict with interest in the long run, 
though it sets aside an immediate orie. But it does not look 
primarily to this interest. It regards the action and the end as 
having an intrinsic worth imposing a universal and absolute 
obligation, and so imposes a subjective law of duty upon the will, 
while prudence is much more under the objective law of circum- 
stances. The subjective law of prudence is personal good, that of 
conscience is impersonal good. The objective law of prudence is 
adaptation, that of conscience is self-realization, the attainment 
of an ideal independent of circumstances. Morality from this 
source will be perfect where it is accompanied by correct judg- 
ment as to means and ends. Imperfection will arise only from 
mistaken knowledge and not from a perverted will, where the law 
of duty is observed, and hence conscience as a motive simply 
adds the moralization of the agent to all other considerations of 
the good ; or to put it in terms of conceptions already distin- 
guished, it combines virtue with the good where knowledge is not 
defective. The individual who exercises it is admired, not for 
his being a means to an end, but for his personality, for the 
intrinsic excellence of a life or action according to the law of 
freedom, of duty, and of ideal attainment. That is to say, con- 
science is the essence of morality where it must be estimated 
in terms of personality or good-will, and viewed from the stand- 
point of individual worth there is no other quality which stands 
so high in the estimation of the world. It is, therefore, the most 
fundamental of all the elements that make up virtue, and view- 
ing this as expressing merely a quality of will, conscience is all 
that is necessary to realize it, leaving to education and experi- 
ence the work of bestowing the knowledge necessary for securing 
correct objective results when the will is good. 

In analyzing thus the functions of motives in morality we 
determine only its subjective side, and so the excellence or 
virtue of the agent. But in common conception morality 
contains more than virtue. It is the goodness also of some- 
thing else than the mere will. The motives may determine 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 147 

the character and worth of the agent. But they do not consti- 
tute the quality of any other data which are essential to com- 
plete morality, though in a world of free agents they are the 
most important elements to reckon upon as security for regular- 
ity and law, which are the first principles of character wherever 
consciousness is concerned. The objective elements and their 
functions, however, are determined by other considerations than 
the value of good- will. To them we immediately turn, and can 
dismiss them very briefly. 

2d. The Act. — The act we have already divided into the 
subjective action and the objective action ; in other words, the 
choice and volition for the one and the external movement for 
the other. The act as a whole, of course, must contain both 
aspects, but each has entirely different functions in relation to 
moral judgment. The internal act or the choice and volition 
are the index of character, and so are an expression of the sub- 
jective side of morality as discussed in the function of conscience. 
It may be a causal link in the series terminating in the result, 
but it determines constitutively nothing but the quality of the 
will, and not the quality of the result. Hence it may be re- 
garded in this respect as doing the same as the motive, and dis- 
missed from farther consideration. But the objective or exter- 
nal act is different. Taken alone it can have neither merit nor 
demerit. Its moral quality is purely relative — relative to the 
result or end* to which it is directed. Its function is purely 
instrumental or dynamic, namely, nothing but a means to an 
end. Whatever value the end has, the means will have, and 
whatever demerit the end or result, so with the means. The 
physical movements in an act of justifiable homicide may be the 
same as in a case of unjustifiable homicide, and yet we do not 
place our judgments in the same attitude regarding both results. 
The quality of the act is measured by the quality of the end, 
and morally considered it can have no other quality. This is 
perhaps a truism, but there have been schools of philosophers 
who have spoken as if they meant to ascribe morality or immo- 
rality to actions w T hich can be considered as nothing more nor 



148 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

less than a means to an end. They in reality spoke of the 
whole complex phenomenon involving the purpose, action, and 
consequence. But opponents eagerly interpreted their language 
literally, while it has been the fault of the human race generally 
to speak of action in the abstract as if it were discussing the 
concrete case involving more than mere action. Hence we find 
homicide, theft, inveracity, injustice, intemperance, imprudence, 
etc., condemned without reference to consequences, and their 
opposites approved without reference to the same. In fact, not 
a single crime in the calendar of evils can be condemned without 
reference to its consequences. Its action, apart from the voli- 
tion of the subject, is nothing more than physical motion, from 
which those very advocates of absolute morality are so 
strenuous to exclude the attributes of either moral or im- 
moral. It possesses nothing but causal or instrumental 
quality, and is deplored or admired according as the con- 
sequences are. 

3d. The End. — The end as already defined is the result 
aimed at. It is this alone, barring the question of freedom, 
which determines the responsibility and the morality of the agent, 
but not all the morality of the act, if that term is to include the 
objective results independent of volition, and assuming that bet- 
ter knowledge may enable all results to come within the ken of 
the agent. Whatever the end so will the agent and the act be, 
the agent because the end is a part of the motive, and the 
act because the end is the result. 

4th. The Result or Consequence. — So far as this is inde- 
pendent of the end aimed at, and so far as it is not known to be 
connected with the end, it can only determine the objective char- 
acter of conduct, and has no reference to the morality of the 
agent. But as long as it comes within the range of possible 
knowledge and can be known by experience to be involved in a 
given act, it will be subject matter for ethical discussion, as being 
involved in the objective qualities of morality as a whole, but is 
not a part of virtue. The function of consequences, therefore, 
in ethical doctrine is to determine the complementary aspect of 



ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 149 

the good- will in considering the complex phenomenon which 
passes as moral or immoral. 

VII. CONCLUSION.— -The conclusion of this chapter merely 
calls fresh attention to the complexity of the phenomena with 
which we have to deal. Morality, as understood by the common 
mind, is not a simple thing. Now it describes only a quality of 
will apart from consequences actually occurring, and now it 
describes actions leading to avoidable consequences, if known, 
and again it describes the complex whole comprehending all 
these elements. Our duty as students is first to understand the 
difference between the points of view involved and not to regard 
as contradictories conceptions which are merely complementary 
factors of a complex whole. Each point of view with its concep- 
tion in those limits may be correct and should be accorded fair 
consideration on that ground. 

Again, we have discussed the subjects of morality and con- 
science without reference to any particular theory about it. 
Some conceive both as necessarily opposed to the utilitarian posi- 
tion. This may be true, or it may not. I certainly do not 
think it necessary, however, to define either of them as excluding 
utilitarian conceptions. In considering conscience as a motive 
function, I do not think it necessary to say what its object is, 
whether pleasure, perfection, law, obedience, or what not. It may 
have any or all of these for its object. Hence, in understanding 
the function of conscience, in morality we may consider only its 
mode of operation and determine its proper object afterward. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE FEEEDOM OF THE WILL. 

I. INTRODUCTORY.— -The freedom of the will has been 
affirmed to be an essential condition of morality and responsi- . 
bility, and we mnst now consider whether this doctrine is true or 
not, or in what sense it is true, if it be so. The controversy in 
modern times, and especially since the acceptance of the doctrine 
of evolution, has been a very warm one. Perhaps it was equally 
so at earlier periods if we are to judge from the theories of men 
like Hobbes, Collins, Hume, Spinoza, and their opponents. But 
aside from the historical interest of the problem, it has consid- 
erable practical importance in the affairs of every-day life, 
individual and social. In the first place free agency, whatever 
it may mean, is commonly accepted as conditioning responsi- 
bility ; that is, the distribution of praise and blame, and through 
this the right of punishment. It is believed that if we are not 
free agents, actions can neither be praised nor blamed, but only 
admired or disliked, and that no system of punishment is justi- 
fiable unless we are the free causes of our own actions. In the 
courts we are in the habit of excusing men when it is shown 
that their conduct is compulsory and involuntary. Maniacs and 
imbeciles are not punished for criminal actions. No measures 
are taken to apply to them the ordinary method of discipline and 
correction, and it is simply because we are not in the habit of 
regarding them as responsible, while they are often spoken of as 
not being free agents. Slaves are denied freedom, and all 
persons in like subservience to the will of others are said not to 
be free in their actions. Their masters or superiors are treated 
as responsible for the conduct enjoined upon them. Reflex and 
automatic actions are regarded as necessary or not free, and so 

150 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 151 

with any action connected with our physical person and not 
willed by us, because they are initiated by antecedents which are 
beyond our control, and which leave no other alternative in the 
case open to choice. The person is in no way praised or blamed 
for such actions, and punishment to prevent them is absurd. 
Hence, to put the whole matter most briefly, wherever we use 
the expression, " This act is not free," we mean to take it wholly 
out of the category of moral actions, subject to punishment, and 
to place it among those which, like physical actions, are not 
amenable to any moral judgment whatever. The consequences 
of denying freedom, therefore, seem to be very far-reaching. 
They seem to involve the whole moral and social constitution of 
society, and also even the defensive action of the individual. I 
do not intend this statement of consequences to be taken at 
present as an argument for freedom, because it may be that they 
will have to be accepted, and social institutions modified to suit 
the facts. But they may be pointed out in order to obtain a 
clear conception of the problem before us. They are necessary 
for the purpose of showing that we cannot take the conception 
of freedom in the abstract, or out of all connection with its 
concrete relations to social phenomena and institutions, and 
decide whether it is valid or not, and at the same time imagine 
that these implications are untouched by our conclusions. We 
cannot give up the conditions of certain facts and yet maintain 
the validity of those facts. We must either defend the freedom 
of the will or give up the legitimacy of the phenomena supposed 
to depend upon it. 

But it is to be remarked, on the other hand, ihat there is a 
great deal of excusable confusion on this subject due to the 
equivocal meaning of the terms and propositions in the contro- 
versy. Neither party gives sufficient attention to clearness 
and to definition of data in the problem. One party uses freedom 
in one sense and the other in another sense, and both parties 
use it in different senses in different connections. It is therefore 
no wonder that there is controversy and confusion in the matter. 
Hence we must assert emphatically that the most important step 



152 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

in discussing the problem is the clear definition of the question 
or questions at issue. This requires a careful examination of 
what is meant by the several theories "of volition and by the term 
freedom. The question whether we are free or not depends 
wholly upon the sense in which we use the term, and there is no 
use to either advocate or oppose any doctrine regarding it until 
we understand ourselves and the conceptions involved. We 
shall therefore proceed to state carefully the fundamental ele- 
ments of the problem and reduce it to its simplest terms. 

II. ELEMENTS OF THE PROBLEM.— There are two things 
to be analyzed in the matter before our attention : they are the 
conception of free action and the conception of the theories re- 
garding it. When we have obtained a clear idea of these we can 
then pronounce judgment upon them one way or the other. 

1st. Uses of the Term Freedom. — There are three general 
and distinct meanings of the term freedom, and all with entirely 
different implications. We shall call them Liberty, Spontaneity, 
and Velleity, and explain each in its order. Liberty and free- 
dom are often used interchangeably, but there is a difference in 
some of their connections, describing what we wish to emphasize 
here, and hence we wish for the sake of clearness and conveni- 
ence to use the term for a special purpose. We might use the 
phrase " physico-political freedom " instead, which is exactly what 
we mean to express by liberty, but it is too cumbersome, and as 
good authority as well as frequent usage stands for the employ- 
ment of the term to denote what can be expressed by physico- 
political liberty, we shall do little violence to habit if we some- 
what restrict the term for important purposes. We may seem a 
little arbitrary, but if our definition of it is kept in mind, rather 
than its frequent identification with freedom, there will be no 
difficulty with it, and at the same time we shall have a clear 
and convenient conception to be distinguished from the other 
two kinds of freedom. We shall therefore take up and define 
each one in its order. 

1. Liberty. — Liberty, as here conceived and in its restricted 
import, we shall define as exemption from external restraint This 



THE FREEDOM OF TEE WILL 153 

restraint may be either physical or social, the latter being meant 
to include all political restrictions upon human action. We call 
a person free, or assert that he has liberty, when external forces 
either do not determine his action or do not determine the cir- 
cumstances limiting the alternatives between which he has to 
choose. Thus, a man in prison is not free, or has lost his liberty. 
A man who can do as he pleases without suffering a penalty for 
it, is said to have his liberty, or to be free. Seasons and climate 
limit a man's liberty in the matter of wearing clothes ; he is not 
free to go without them in any sense that he can escape the conse- 
quences. A slave is said not to be free, in which we do not mean 
that he cannot possibly do as he pleases, or that he cannot help 
obeying his master, but that he must do so at his risk, that he is 
liable to certain consequences for following his spontaneous de- 
sires. We give him his liberty when we remove the restrictions 
which prevent natural and desirable action on his part, and force 
upon him a choice which he would not otherwise make. All men 
are hemmed in by some such restraints, either physical or social. 
Climate, gravitation, seasons, geographical conditions, political in- 
stitutions, economic conditions, and a thousand other influences 
are at work to limit the satisfaction of desire. To that extent we 
can say that we are not free, whereby we mean merely that we 
cannot do as we please without incurring disagreeable conse- 
quences. Hence, freedom or liberty, used to describe exemption 
from these restraints, means only a condition in which we act ac- 
cording to our natural desires. The term is used most frequently 
to describe a political condition — political liberty, whereby we 
mean exemption from the laws, customs, and restraints which put 
one man in subjection to the will of others. But in this sense no 
man is absolutely free, every one is under some restrictions, and 
perhaps ought to be. They do not compel him to act in a given 
way, but make the alternatives so unpleasant that none except 
the permitted course will probably be chosen. In this sense 
freedom or liberty is a privilege rather than a power, a privilege 
to act with impunity rather than the faculty of alternative ac- 
tion. Thus a man is not at liberty to commit murder and escape 



154 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the risks of punishment, but lie has the power to commit the 
murder and to accept the penalty, or not to commit it and thus to 
be free from risk. Freedom, then, as liberty is simply exemption 
from restraint or limitation. We take up next the second mean- 
ing of the term. 

2. Spontaneity. — Spontaneity may be itechnically denned 
as subjective causation, or the origination of one's own act. It 
might be called autonomy or self-initiative were it not that 
sometimes these terms are used synonymously with freedom in 
the third sense where consciousness and deliberation are involved. 
But I do not yet wish to condition spontaneity by deliberation, 
or even consciousness. As here used the term simply defines self- 
motion or activity, whether conscious or not, as contrasted with 
mechanical action which is not originated by the subject in 
which it occurs, or at least, is never supposed to do so. All 
physical motion or action is said .to be necessitated, because the 
body in motion is supposed to be incapable of causing its own 
motion. It is inert, and whatever activity it manifests is trans- 
mitted to it from without, unless we describe its reaction and 
resistance to its own powers. But movement and its transmis- 
sion to other bodies cannot, so far as human experience goes, be 
originated by matter in itself, but must be received from with- 
out, and if any external body or cause act on another, the effect 
is inevitable and necessary. It is neither conscious nor one of 
two possible alternatives under the same conditions. But if the 
agent or subject originate any action of itself and without stim- 
ulus from the outside it would certainly be a self-initiated act, a 
spontaneous creation of its own power, not a creation of a sub- 
stantive thing, but of an act, event, or phenomenon. Moreover, 
even if a stimulus does act on a subject, and the effect is wholly 
different from a mechanical one, something must be attributed to 
the subject rather than to the stimulus. Thus, if I see a fire and 
run to watch the process of extinction, my action can hardly be 
compared to the effect of one billiard-ball upon another when 
struck. I originate the action of running, though the sight of fire 
is necessary to explain the occasion and the motive of it. Spon- 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 155 

taneity thus expresses a power in contrast with inertia, and 
denotes capacity to originate action. This, of course, is con- 
scious. Not to seek for analogies of it in the resistance of 
material bodies, and their modifying influence on other bodies 
when struck, it is probable that automatic and instinctive 
actions are the first types of spontaneity in organic life. They 
are certainly not caused by any agency without the person 
or subject of them. We may claim that they have their 
stimulus in the organism and so far must be classed with 
ordinary mechanical actions, and I do not care to dispute this 
view. But they are certainly not the necessary effect of ex- 
ternal conditions as the movement of one billiard-ball by another 
is. They belong to the subject and the conditions of its nature. 
However, it is not necessary to push the application of the 
term spontaneity into the field of the purely unconscious. It is 
practically admitted to be a fact by all who grant the existence of 
conscious action, but deny that a man's action might have been 
otherwise than it was. Every man must be the caifse of his own 
volitions; otherwise they are not his volitions or acts at all. 
If I move my arm to pick up my pen, it is not the pen which 
"caused" the act, nor is it my surroundings, the physical 
objects about me. If they produced the effect, they should con- 
tinue to do so as long as they are about me. There may have 
been "reasons" in my surroundings, or in the special condi- 
tions under which I am placed for picking up my pen, but " rea- 
sons " are not external causes, and they may not be causes at all. 
Similarly, if I steal, the act arises from conditions within myself, 
not from the action of external objects; otherwise every con- 
scious agent would be expected to steal immediately that he came 
near the same objects, nay, would be forced to do so. It might 
even be true that every one would steal under the same " condi- 
tions." But these conditions would have to be internal; for it 
is a fact that the sameness of external conditions does not issue 
in the same results with different persons. Hence the only way 
to explain the difference of effect is to refer it to the subjective 
conditions and nature of the agent. This is regarding him as 



156 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the cause of the effect instead of referring it to a foreign influ- 
ence. Now, in all actions representing an end, a conscious pur- 
pose, the subject is the cause. All other "conditions" are mere 
circumstances or occasions, opportunities which consciousness 
observes, weighs, and measures. In the sense, then, that a man 
is the cause of his own actions we can ascribe to him the attri- 
bute of spontaneity, the power of originating himself certain acts, 
which are properly called volitions. Freedom is used to describe 
this phenomenon in order to name a fact which must be distin- 
guished from mechanically caused events. We may hold that 
spontaneous actions cannot have been otherwise, if we like, but 
they are not produced by the transmission of force, as in the 
physical world, from one body to another. They originate with 
the subject of them. Spontaneity is thus self-initiative, whether 
we choose to regard it as conscious or unconscious, and is 
opposed to foreign initiative. It is self-movement as opposed to 
inertia, and is only a name for mental causation as contrasted 
with mechanical causation. This will be as true under a mate- 
rialistic as under a spiritualistic philosophy. 

3. Velleity. — Velleity is the capacity of alternative choice, 
or, as it is sometimes called, contrary choice. I have chosen 
the term from the medieval Latin, velleitas (Latin velle, to wish 
or to will) in order to distinguish, as nearly all writers do, med- 
ieval or modern, between merely spontaneously caused actions 
and actions that might have been otherwise, conditions being the 
same. Whether there are any such remains still to be deter- 
mined. But we certainly have a conception of them, and often 
use the term freedom to denote them. The doctrines of responsi- 
bility and punishment certainly assume that certain actions ought, 
and therefore could, have been otherwise than they are, that the 
agent could have chosen the right as well as the wrong. If they 
could not have been otherwise, it seems unreasonable to act toward 
the agent as if they could have been different. Punishment 
either assumes that this is possible or that it can modify them 
afterward and prevent this repetition. Hence it is a question 
whether, conditions being the same, the power of alternative 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 157 

choice exists. But it is this which is perhaps more frequently 
implied by freedom than the first two meanings when speaking of 
free will. We are not ready, however, for the argument on one 
side or the other. Our present duty is only to fix the concep- 
tion of freedom as velleity, and to indicate the distinction be- 
tween this and the other conception expressed by the same term. 
There is a peculiar relation existing between the three. In the 
first place, liberty, as we saw, is exemption from foreign re- 
straint ; velleity does not require any such exemption. If it 
exist at all, it may not, must not, be influenced by any such lim- 
itations whatever. In the second place, spontaneity, as defined, 
is subjective causation, but velleity must include this and adds 
to it the capacity of alternative choice. He who can act other- 
wise than he does on any occasion must be the cause of his own 
actions ; but he who is the cause of his own actions may not be 
able, under similar conditions, to do otherwise. In other words, 
velleity is a conception which includes or implies spontaneity, 
but spontaneity does not include velleity. This is an important 
fact bearing on the liability to illusion caused by this peculiar 
relation. Velleity, however, will be the name for this differen- 
tial quality, known as the power of alternative choice. It is 
illustrated most clearly perhaps in the phenomenon of delibera- 
tion. Whether this proves anything or not in regard to freedom 
is not the question at present. But it does show that the agent 
is conscious of one or more alternative volitions as presented, 
whether he be able or not to choose any but one of them under 
the conditions. This will explain the conception which might 
naturally arise respecting his freedom as velleity. Responsibility 
seems to imply much more than mere causality. A man with 
nothing but instincts to determine his conduct would be the cause 
of his actions, but no one would attribute responsibility to him. 
Hence more than mere spontaneity is required to establish that 
quality of rational beings. If, then, we could add the capacity of 
alternative choice to subjective causation, or velleity to spontaneity, 
we could sustain responsibility. In fact, this last is often identi- 
fied with freedom. We shall find later a reason to distinguish 



158 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

them much as we have distinguished the second and third con- 
ceptions of freedom. In the meantime, however, freedom in every 
sense of the term can be regarded as a condition of responsibility, 
while calling attention to the fact that the capacity of alterna- 
tive choice implied in the latter is taken to denote freedom. 
With this definition of the various uses of the term we may turn 
to a statement of the real problem involved in the controversy 
between those who affirm and those who deny the freedom of 
the will. 

2d. The Issue in Regard to Freedom.— This issue between the 
disputants regarding free will does not concern all the meanings 
of the term. It has in reality to do with only one of them, 
namely, velleity. But the fact that the term has three distinct 
meanings is very important, as showing the illusion and fallacies 
of certain arguments, both for and against freedom. This fact 
we shall make clear again. At present it is an excuse both for 
the analysis we have given and for the sifting of the issue down 
to its simplest terms. 

In the first place, if freedom be taken in the sense of liberty, 
or exemption from external restraint, there is no doubt whatever 
that man is not free. No one, probably, would deny this fact. 
There is, or ought to be, perfect agreement in regard to this con- 
ception of the case. The controversy, therefore, between the two 
schools cannot turn upon this view of the problem. Secondly, if 
freedom be taken in the sense of spontaneity, there can be no 
denying that man is free in all actions that can be called his 
own ; that is, his volitions. Nothing need be implied here one 
way or the other about reflex and automatic actions, and such 
other movements as are connected with the physical person, but 
not willed by the conscious agent. We are dealing only with 
volitions, which are conscious acts, and are not anything else. 
These must be free or self-caused as opposed to being mechan- 
ically caused. All parties, as we have already remarked, are 
agreed again on this issue. Hence the controversy cannot turn 
upon the question whether spontaneity is a fact or not. This is 
not the conception of freedom which is denied. There remains, 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 159 

therefore, only the third conception, namely, velleity, or the 
possibility of alternative choice, as the one about which the dis- 
pute can turn. The fact is that this is the only one that can 
present any rational ground for doubt. It is not the only con- 
ception of it that enters into the questions of ethics or conditions 
other characteristics of man, namely, responsibility. But it is 
the only conception of free will that can be open to dispute ; 
that is, of which there may be two opinions. Many of the argu- 
ments, however, have no bearing upon this conception of it. 
Nevertheless, in examining them as we discuss this one true 
issue, we shall be obliged to state them as they are advanced, 
and can then estimate their value as we perceive their relation 
to the question. When the proper time comes we shall state 
the arguments on both sides, but only with the understanding 
that the issue, whether the arguments are relevant or not, is 
only concerning velleity, and not freedom in every sense of the 
term. In the meantime, before undertaking to consider this 
controversy, another aspect of the issue requires to be analyzed 
very carefully, namely, the theories of volition and the concep- 
tions which they imply. T\ T e shall probably find as many 
sources of confusion and equivocation in them as in the diverse 
notions of freedom which we have examined. 

3d. The Theories of Volition. — One classification of these 
theories makes them only two which are opposed to each other. 
They are Necessitarianism or Determinism, and Lihertarianism or 
Freedomism. Necessitarianism or determinism, as conceived in 
this classification, maintains that man's actions are necessitated, 
that he cannot act otherwise than he does. Each volition is 
conceived, by this thoery, as inevitable under the circumstances, 
*as inevitable as the fall of an apple under the attraction of gravi- 
tation, if it be unsuspended or unsupported. In its extreme 
form a man is not blamed for his conduct. It is treated as the 
necessary effect of a cause over which the agent has no control. 
If a man steals, he cannot help it ; it is the result of his charac- 
ter or his circumstances. If he does not steal, regard for property 
is just as fatal in deciding his conduct as disregard for it is in the 



160 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

case of the thief. The difference between the two persons is in 
their antecedent characters. They have not the same powers, such 
as freedom supposes. On the other hand, libertarianism or free- 
domism maintains that man is free, that he has the power of 
alternative choice or velleity, and that his actions are not neces- 
sitated in any sense of the term. It holds that man makes his 
own character, so far as that is an expression of volition at all, 
and that where it is not such a product it has no causal power to 
determine his volitions. The antithesis or opposition between 
this theory and that of necessity is complete, and there would 
seem to be no choice except between the two. The terms, of 
course, are liable to all the illusions attending their equivocal 
meaning. But after restricting the issue to the power of alter- 
native choice the opposition between them would seem to be clear 
and our choice restricted to one or the other. 

It is important to remark, in spite of this conception of the 
case, that the matter is not quite so clear. Both the historical 
treatment of free will and the arguments used for and against it 
assume at least one more point of view, and also conceptions of 
the problem involving more than one idea of freedom. On this 
account it is necessary to give what we regard as a more com- 
plete and satisfactory classification of theories, defining the vari- 
ous possible attitudes toward the problem. The two theories 
already mentioned seem both to admit that volitions are caused, 
and in this view of the case the opposition must be between 
two different kinds of causes. But all moralists have not 
been agreed that freedomism admitted the subordination of 
volition to the law of causation. Hence there have been at 
least two forms of that theory, and there has also been more 
than one form of necessitarianism. But as the argument has 
most frequently turned upon the connection of causation with 
volition, this principle should be the basis of a true classification, 
and since freedom in the minds of many persons has been under- 
stood to imply that free actions are not caused, we must recog- 
nize a theory representing that point of view. 

The most general classification of theories represented by his- 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 161 

torical controversies is that which divides them into Determinism 
and Indeterminism, or the freedom of- indifference, sometimes 
called Indifferentism. Determinism maintains that volitions are 
caused. We must remember, however, that usage has not 
always opposed this idea to freedom. Kant and Leibnitz and 
others have represented themselves as freedomists and yet 
determinists at the same time. As we use the term here, there- 
fore, it is not meant to oppose anything bat indeterminism, but 
asserts only that volitions are subject to the law of causation, like 
all other events ; but it does not say anything about the kind of 
cause concerned. On the other hand, indeterminism does not 
represent a single type of conception. It is only in one of its 
senses that it is distinctly opposed to determinism as a theory of 
caused volitions. But it represents three different forms of con- 
dition for free action. They are (a) causeless volitions ; (h) 
motiveless volitions ; and (c) indifferent volitions. It. is only the 
first of these that is distinctly opposed to modern determinism, 
but it has been held by many writers as a primary condition of 
freedom that volitions should be uncaused or independent of the 
law of causation. This was the claim of Hume, is the claim of 
Spencer, and of all who use, as one writer does, the following 
language : " Believing as the author does that change is un- 
thinkable except in the category of causation, the affirmation 
that the will is free, or that the self is free to will, seems thor- 
oughly unwarranted either by fact or reason." On the other 
hand, many medieval and some later writers have held that a 
volition in order to be free should be motiveless. They admitted 
that if it were caused by " motives," the strongest would prevail 
and that this would cut off the possibility of alternative choice. 
Hence they conceived free volition as motiveless. The famous 
illustration of this idea was the ass between two bundles of hay 
(asinus Buridaui). The idea was that an ass placed between 
two bundles of hay would be equally attracted by both of 
them, and if under this condition he could not choose to eat, 
he must starve. The determinist said he must either starve 
or the motives were not equal. The freedomist held that the 



162 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

attractions must be equal, and yet it was a fact that the ass 
would eat of one or both bundles of hay. Both sides, how- 
ever, agreed that if free and the two motives were equal the 
volition of the ass had to be motiveless, because the two opposing 
attractions neutralized each other. Such is the famous concep- 
tion of the freedom of indifference as action without a motive. 
The third conception of indeterminism is very much like the 
second, though it does not affirm that free action must exclude 
motives. It simply maintains that it should be as indifferent to 
motives as to any other mental fact. It admits the concomitance 
and denies the causality of motives. 

But as the freedomist has often admitted that volitions 
are caused, and only asserted that it was free as opposed to 
necessary causation, the theory of determinism divides into 
two forms. I shall call them objective determinism and sub- 
jective determinism. The former would be properly named 
also physical necessitarianism. This is the conception that 
would refer all actions to the law of mechanical causation 
or initiation from without. All ^physical movements are caused 
by external impulsion or influence and do not originate 
spontaneously or from within the subject. The stroke of a 
ball, the fall of a stone or a tree, the expansion of matter under 
heat, the growth of organic life, the changes of the seasons, etc., 
are all necessitated events. Mechanical necessitarianism, if 
seriously held by any one, would maintain that volitions are of 
the same type of events. They might occur wholly within the 
subject, but nevertheless be the product of the brain, which is a 
physical force external to the volition and the subject itself only 
of mechanical causes. This is to say that volition so conceived 
is only one in a series of events having their point of transmis- 
sion in the brain. If this be true the will cannot be free in any 
sense of the term, except possibly spontaneity, because it would 
be nothing more than the brain itself in the exercise of certain 
functions. 

On the other hand, subjective determinism, while it is opposed 
to mechanical necessitarianism ; that is, to the theory that all 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 



163 



events whatsoever are the effect of causes foreign to the subject 
in which they occur, is not opposed to the conception that 
volitions may be quite as uniform and unalterable as if they 
were mechanically initiated. It, therefore, divides into two 
forms, which I shall call psychical necessitarianism and freedom- 
ism, according as volitions are the effect of spontaneity or of 
velleity. Psychical necessitarianism admits that volitions are not 
externally caused, but are the product of the subject. However, 
it opposes the conception that alternative choice is equally 
possible. It is founded upon the prevalence of the strongest 
motive, a phenomenon conceived after the analogy of the 
mechanical law regarding the resultant of physical forces, and 
upon the doctrine that a man must act in accordance with the 
bent of his character. That is to say, it holds that whatever 
other courses of action may be conceived by the subject only 
one of them is^ possible to him, his nature being what it is, and 
that our inability to tell beforehand what the subject will do is 
due wholly to our ignorance of the complex conditions consti- 
tuting his character. On the other hand, freedomism simply 
affirms that man can choose equally between two alternatives, 
and so is opposed alike to physical and to psychical necessita- 
rianism. 

The following tabular outline is a resume of the classification 
just given : 

Causeless Volitions — (Spontaneous Generation). 
Indeterminism \ Motiveless A T olitions= (Automatism). 
Indifferent Volitions = (Indifferentism). 



Determinism 



Objective Determinism 

or 
Physical 

Necessitarianism 

Subjective Determinism 

or 

Mental Causation 



Absolute 
Eelative = 



: Fatalism. 
Mechanism. 



Psychical 

Necessitarianism 

or 
Univolism. 

Freedomism. 



In stating the real issue involved in the controversy about free- 



164 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

dom, it is important to note the number of possible antitheses ex- 
pressed by this classification, and to indicate, as in the conception 
of freedom, just where the only real* and true opposition exists. 
It must be remembered, however, that the classification does not 
attempt in all cases to avoid cross-division, which a strictly log- 
ical system would do. But it endeavors only to state the tradi- 
tional conceptions and antitheses with as clear a view of them as 
is possible in the case. Thus historically indeterminism and de- 
terminism are opposed to each other, and it has been true also 
historically that motiveless volitions were intended to express 
indeterminism, but in reality they are not opposed to determin- 
ism or caused volitions. The only real antagonism in the case 
can be between determinism and indeterminism as causeless 
volitions or spontaneous generation. This is an inconsistency in 
historical thought, which can be eliminated only in either of 
two ways — either by abandoning the term indeterminism as 
properly describing them, or by changing the principle of oppo- 
sition between this and determinism. 

But in ascertaining the real issue between the two schools of 
thought we have only to note that in later times it is every- 
where admitted, with a few exceptions, that volitions can be 
neither causeless nor motiveless, nor indifferent to a particular 
one. On this supposition freedom has either to be denied or 
regarded as compatible, perhaps identical, with determinism. In 
fact, as long as determinism means nothing more than the fact 
that volitions, like other events, must be subject to the law of 
causation, it cannot be opposed to a doctrine of freedom affirm- 
ing that volitions are caused by the subject If necessitarian- 
ism, or determinism, as employed by some writers, is to oppose 
freedom at all it must place the antithesis upon some other prin- 
ciple than causation without any qualifications. 

Again, there is a clear antithesis between objective or physical 
and subjective or mental determinism, so that if one of them be 
true regarding volitions the other cannot be. But as no one, 
not even the materialist, supposes that volitions are caused by 
external objects, the opposition to freedom cannot be made from 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 165 

the standpoint of mechanical causation external to the organism. 
All are agreed, as has been already affirmed, that man is the 
cause of his own actions. The only remaining question is 
whether he must choose as he does, or whether he could equally 
choose otherwise than he does. The antitheses, then, if it is to 
represent anything real in actual human opinion on the prob- 
lem of free will, must be found in the distinction between free- 
domism as defined in the above classification and psychical 
determinism or univolism.* The real issue, therefore, sifts 
itself down to a question between two kinds of subjective deter- 
minism. While other antitheses logically exist, they represent a 
wholly false conception of the real problem, and while they in- 
dicate past and historical theories regarding volition, they do 
not represent anything at present worth contending about. No 
consequences to ethical doctrines are involved in any of them 
but the last. Hence the controversy must be confined to the 
issue between freedomism, and univolism or psycho-dynamism. 
All arguments not tending to establish one of these and to re- 
fute the other are absolutely irrelevant to the problem. 

III. FACTS AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST FREE WILL.— 
In stating these arguments w r e shall not have exclusive reference 
to the issue as we have defined it really to be. There is every 
reason to respect historical conceptions ; that is, past ideas of the 
case, and their influence upon many thinkers to-day where a 
little circumspection would both discover illusion and simplify 
the issue. Consequently we shall state all the facts and princi- 
ples which we are likely to find among present and past contro- 
versialists, and which are used to deny freedom in some sense of 
the term. Their relevancy can be discussed in the proper place. 
But they will be stated in their order and as briefly as possible. 

* I have deliberately coined the word " univolism " (Latin unus and volo) 
for the convenience and economy of a single term. Besides, it has the ad- 
vantage of expressing etymologically the singleness of the volition, or of the 
course open to choice, so called, and contrasts very well with freedomism 
as the theory of velleity or alternative choice. Univolism thus expresses 
the only tenable position which can be taken by a theory calling itself 
necessitarianism. Psycho-Dynamism might also be used for the purpose. 



166 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

1st. The Universality of Causation. — This argument when 
stated is that all events are subject to the law of causation, 
and as volition is an event it must come under that law, and as 
causation is supposed to necessitate the event which it causes 
volitions would appear to be necessary and not free. 

2d. Man's Subordinate Place in Nature. — This argument 
is a special application of that from universal causation, as 
perhaps most of them are. But it is not always realized to be 
such, and hence has a force of its own. It conceives man as a 
dependent creature and all his conduct limited and determined by 
powers superior to his own. It is unquestionably true that man is 
a mere atom compared with the number and greatness of the 
forces that subordinate him to themselves. Nothing has empha- 
sized this more distinctly than modern astronomy and the theory 
of evolution. The one shows the immensity of the forces in 
space that are related to him and condition his activities, and the 
other shows what limitations in time are in the way of attaining 
an ideal which only slowly realizes itself. Theology again with 
its conception of God, which only adds personality to the power 
recognized by natural science, and retains the idea of man's 
extremely finite capacities, illustrates the same conception. 
Man's dependence for existence and for his capacities upon 
these vast agencies, and the terrible limitations which they im- 
pose upon his choice, might well frighten him in his claims 
of freedom. Freedom seems to imply independence of limi- 
tations, but finding that the universe subordinates man wholly to 
its own laws and activities it is only natural that the conscious- 
ness of such a fact should humiliate the pretensions of all creat- 
ures. At any rate, it appears to those who are conscious of this 
dependence that freedom would « imply superiority to the laws of 
nature. 

3d. The Prevalence of the Strongest Motive. — This argument 
conceives the motive as determining the volition. It must be 
the antecedent of every conscious choice and act, and we have 
been accustomed to regard the end chosen as an alternative to 
others as representing the strongest motive. A reason always 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 167 

seems necessary for one choice rather than another, and prefer- 
ence implies a stronger desire for the alternative chosen. Now, 
from the supposition that motives are causes, on the one hand, 
and from the analogy of prevailing or stronger forces in the 
physical world with the necessary character of their effects, it is 
very natural to infer that a man cannot will otherwise than he 
does, that the strongest motive always prevailing, he has no real 
alternative to the volition chosen. The argument gets much of 
its cogency from its analogy with the law of resultant forces, 
which is purely a mechanical and necessary law. 

4th. The Influence of Character. — Character is a fixed way 
of acting, or it is that fixed quality in the nature of an individ- 
ual according to which we always expect to see him act. A 
man must act according to his nature and he cannot act other- 
wise. Not to be able to act otherwise than he does is taken 
as a denial of freedom. As a man's nature is, so are his deeds. 
Thus if we find a man addicted to intemperance we explain 
his habit, not only by the strongest motive, but also by a cer- 
tain predisposition in his constitution, physical or mental. He 
is said to have a tendency which predetermines him to drink. 
So with theft, homicide, vice, cruelty, and all other criminal acts 
which manifest themselves in a permanent disposition to commit 
them. We come to think that the criminal cannot help doing 
what he does, and all because his character inclines him that 
way and does not permit that intellectual balance of ideas and 
feelings which would regulate the will either for prudence or for 
righteousness. 

Then it is a man's nature to be hungry, to be thirsty, to feel 
sensations when touched, to think, to remember, to perform 
reflex and automatic actions, and none of these are said to be 
free. Why except the will and its actions? Will not the 
nature of the subject show as much inevitableness in the field of 
the will as in that of the intellect and the emotions ? Does not 
character decide as necessarily a man's volitions as it does his 
thoughts and feelings ? It certainly seems to show as much reg- 
ularity of purpose and conduct as natural laws, and may not the 



168 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

fact be due to similar causes, to fixed conditions which prevent 
alternative choice in spite of appearances to the contrary ? Im- 
pulse and instinct show, one of them a fixed tendency to adjust- 
ment with a variable medium, and the other an organic tendency 
to act without regard to changes of environment. We do not 
suspect freedom, in the latter case at least, and it is only an 
expression of the nature of the subject. In conscious actions, 
such as theft, vice, dishonesty, injustice, intemperance, etc., a 
man seems either to be the victim of the strongest motive, as in 
impulse, or the slave of his nature, as in instinct. Moreover, is 
not character but a name for a higher instinct, a fixed tendency, 
in spite of the presence of consciousness ? Will the fact that 
the character is good affect the question? Is it not, whether 
good or bad, merely a quality of natural constitution, which 
fixes once for all the direction of the will, just as a genius for 
mathematics or for philosophy fixes the nature of one's ideas ? 
If thus compelled by character to adopt a given course in prefer- 
ence to another, a man's conduct does not seem to exhibit that 
equilibrium between two alternatives which is supposed to de- 
fine freedom. Hence the limitations of nature and of habit, 
which is " a second nature," are such as to give human conduct 
all the regularity and certitude of actions which are universally 
regarded as necessary rather than free. 

5th. The Influence of Heredity. — This argument is a special 
application of the one from character, but always appears 
stronger to the mind because of its peculiar implications. Char- 
acter, as we ordinarily use it, may express nothing more than 
habit, or the uniform way in which a man does act and that 
enables us to estimate the probabilities of future action. But 
being itself presumably the product of will, we do not feel the force 
of attributing volition to character as its cause unless we intend 
to convey by it a quality which is not a product of our own 
choice and habits. We are, or have been, accustomed to assume 
that every individual comes into the world without any special 
bent in one direction and that he learns to act in a special way 
by experience. The empirical school of psychology has always 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 169 

taught a doctrine that practically agreed with the traditional 
assumptions of free will, namely, that the mind is a tabula rasa 
and has to learn everything by experience, there being no innate 
" practical principles " any more than there are innate theoretical 
principles or truths. This is to say that there is no special char- 
acter or disposition to determine the will in one direction rather 
than another. But the school of psychology which opposes em- 
piricism, or the derivation of everything from the experience of 
the individual, adheres to the doctrine that the subject is natu- 
rally endowed with certain constitutional faculties and propensi- 
ties from which he has no escape and which determine the direc- 
tion of his life. He has not the power to banish them from his 
nature. The doctrine of heredity comes in to reinforce this 
opinion. Whatever we may suppose the ancestor to have been, 
and granting that his character was a product of his experience, 
it does not always seem to be the case with his successor, who 
inherits a predisposition to certain kinds of action. Here the 
power of habit transmits itself from one generation where it 
shows at least some instability to another where it seems to have 
all the stability and domination of an instinct, and instinctive 
is presumably not free action. A man is born with a he- 
reditary tendency to drink, to theft, to vice, to criminality 
in general, and this means that he has not the nature to 
feel and appreciate any other alternative than the one to 
which he is predisposed. We might say that he could 
choose otherwise if he so desired. But it is the want of 
any other desire that is his defect and which indicates the 
sole possession of the one affecting his will. Had he another 
desire he would be as much the victim of that, whether good or 
bad, as the one disposed actually to determine his conduct. We 
are here disposed to assume that if only the character is good 
there is more freedom than if it is bad. But this is an illusion. 
Heredity show T s a constitutional tendency in one direction, 
whether good or evil, and so determines the most decided limita- 
tions to any expectations that the agent will have free control over 
his passions. It is a predetermination of the subject's life and 



170 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

action, and seems to establish an overwhelming objection to the 
possibility of alternative choice. It is an inborn trait which pre- 
determines the strongest motive and shuts out others from suc- 
cessful competition with this one tendency. In every individual 
whom we find handicapped by any marked hereditary tendencies, 
we instinctively feel that he is to be pitied or admired according 
to his endowment, and not according to his action. We do not 
blame him so severely, but rather feel compassion for him, if the 
inheritance be a bad one ; nor do we bestow as much praise upon . 
his conduct, if we find it merely the result of a natural aptitude 
which might yield to any change of circumstances (and we must 
remember that even instincts are variable), as we should when 
we know it to be rational rather than a merely hereditary and 
instinctive following of the line of least resistance. All of these 
facts seem to point to a limitation at least, and perhaps an 
exclusion, of freedom from the qualities of the subject, when 
heredity produces an unbalanced soul and fixes the direction of 
its inclinations. 

6th. The Mechanical Regularity of Habit. — The force of this 
argument lies in the fact that it seems to attest the existence of 
a predominant tendency to act in a given direction. It is not 
the habit itself which is regarded as the limiting cause of voli- 
tions that are supposed not to be free, but it is merely a fact 
which indicates the momentum of the mind and attests the pre- 
vailing motive and the more or less fixed character of the agent 
which are presumed to contradict freedom. We often see habits 
which take such possession of the individual that they seem as 
strong as instincts and as irresistible as passions. They act in 
season and out of season, making a mere machine of the subject 
and exhibiting conduct thai: cannot be distinguished for regular- 
ity and blindness from the actions and movements of physical 
bodies. Surely such a subject cannot be free. 

7th. The Predictability of Human Actions. — This argument is 
designed to compare volitions to events which are regarded as 
necessary because they occur with the fatuity of all physical phe- 
nomena and cannot be prevented or made variable. Thus we 



THE FREEDOM OF THE Wilt 171 

can predict the eclipses of the sun and moon, the exact hour and 
minute of the tides, the return of a comet, the position of the 
planets, the recurrence of the seasons, and even to some extent 
the weather, our limitations in all instances being due to our 
ignorance of the complex conditions determining the phenom- 
enon. But where we know the conditions, such as the action of 
gravitation, we can predict withunerring certainty the effect of 
them. All such phenomena are invariable and necessary. There 
is no caprice or variation about them, and this is because they 
are under the control of natural laws, which operate without 
either the consciousness or the possibility of alternative action. 
The regularity of their action is an evidence of their source, 
so that if we find human conduct showing a similar regularity 
and predictability we would at once suspect that it was under 
the control of a similar inevitable cause. Now, as a fact, obser- 
vation shows a remarkable regularity in the amount of suicide 
and other crimes in different localities and conditions of the 
world, a regularity that enables us to predict, according to the 
measure of our knowledge of the conditions, the amount of it 
likely to occur from year to year. Also illegitimacy shows -about 
the same percentage from period to period and even has its 
sjDecial ratio for the different seasons. Vagrancy can now be cal- 
culated to a reasonable degree of accuracy for the various coun- 
tries, and this with suicide and illegitimacy does not greatly 
modify its ratio with the increase of population, as we should 
naturally expect that it would vary. The amount of poverty in 
large cities due to intemperance shows a very striking resem- 
blance in all cases. Now, if we only knew the conditions of all 
conduct so well as in these cases we might be able to forecast 
just what was likely to take place, while it is presumed that 
there can be no foretelling of free actions. "Where any other 
possibility exists, or any number of such possibilities other than 
the one actually willed, it would seem that prediction would be 
excluded from the case. "We could only wait until the event 
occurred and register it. That is to say, predictability seems to 
rest upon conditions which wholly contradict the possibility of 



172 ' % ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

alternative events, and so to contradict freedom which supposes 
that possibility. 

8th. Predestination or Foreordi nation. — This is the theo- 
logical argument against freedom. It includes the previous 
argument from predictability or prescience, but also contains 
the idea of predetermination by some external agency. So 
far as it denotes this external fixation of events the argu- 
ment is an overwhelming one to most persons who realize 
the limitations which such a condition imposes upon alterna- 
tive choice. 

IV. AUG UMENTS IN FA VOB OF FREE WILL.— The defense 
of freedom involves two classes of argument which do not have 
equal value. One of them consists merely of rebuttal of argu- 
ments on the other side, and perhaps goes no farther than show- 
ing a verdict of "not proven" against necessitarianism; the 
other attempts to establish definitely the position of the fredom- 
ist and so to distinctly refute the opposing theory. These I 
shall call respectively the negative and the positive arguments for 
freedom. The first class simply removes the difficulties created 
by the arguments already considered, and the second advances 
to direct proof. Each of these classes will have to be considered 
in its proper order. 

Before examining these arguments, however, it will be most 
important to make some observations on the general question in 
order to measure rightly both the strength and the weakness of 
either side of the controversy. It is a fact which ought not to 
be forgotten that both schools of disputants assume that what- 
ever is proved in the case of one set of men applies to all. We 
are in the habit of assuming that all men are. equal, an assump- 
tion that comes partly from the history of modern political 
institutions, partly from the social life inculcated by Christianity, 
and partly from the medieval doctrine of freedom and responsi- 
bility. Human equality would be a corollary of equal freedom 
and responsibility. But there is no greater illusion than the 
supposition that all persons are born with the same degree of 
power in regard to their conduct. Men are not equal in their 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 173 

physical strength, in their intelligence, in their disposition, in 
their tastes or desires. They are as various in these respects 
as the leaves of the trees. Hence it is not possible to carry the 
conclusion drawn from one class of men to another and differently 
endowed class, whether the conclusion regards necessitarianism 
or freedomism. I do not mean to say that men are unequal 
in all respects, but only that they are so generally unequal that 
we may well ask whether they might not be unequal in regard 
to freedom. For instance, assume that the imbecile, the insane, 
and the irreclaimable criminal are not free, it will not follow 
that the normal and rational man is not free unless we can 
prove or assume that in the necessary conditions the two are the 
same in nature. So if we prove that the' properly developed 
man is free it does not follow that the abnormal man is equally 
so. We see no reason to make freedom an absolutely simple 
quality incapable of degrees. It is possible to conceive it as ex- 
isting in all stages of development from pure determinism to 
absolute freedom. Whether it is so or not, as a fact, probably 
requires proof or may be left to individual opinion. But on 
a priori grounds, considering the enormous inequalities among 
men respecting intelligence, feelings, and desires, it is at least 
probable that differences of will capacity should also exist. 
Hence it is enough to say that we must not hastily conclude 
from the presence or absence of freedom in one man or class of 
men to the same in all others. It may be true that they are 
all alike in this matter, but this truth cannot be assumed. A 
valid conclusion must have the same conditions in all cases, and 
as these vary between blind instincts and the highest intelligence 
and power there ought to be room for various degrees of 
freedom or of determinism in volitions. Many of the argu- 
ments on both sides have their value modified by this fact and 
will appear restricted in application on this account, or will 
require additional reasons than their fitness to special cases 
in order to secure them universal cogency. With this caution 
we may proceed to consider the arguments favorable to freedom. 
These as observed are negative and positive. We shall state 



174 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the negative cases first, as eliminating objections, restricting the 
issue, and clearing our path. 

1st. Negative Arguments. — The formulation of the negative 
arguments will involve the farther analysis of elements in the 
problems which have only been stated incidentally. Moreover, 
it is hoped that a dogmatic discussion of them may be avoided, 
because the question is either an open one or the truth may lie 
somewhere betweeen the two extreme theories. The first criti- 
cism of necessitarianism begins with the oldest form of it. 

1. The Distinction between Mechanical and Imma- 
nent Causes. — By a mechanical cause we mean one that acts 
from without the subject whose action is to be explained. It is 
illustrated in the movements of physical bodies. A "stone fall- 
ing to the ground, a billiard-ball struck by the cue, a cannon- 
ball impelled by powder, the motion of an instrument by the 
arm, are all instances of . mechanical causes. But an immanent 
cause is one which originates with the subject alone. It is in- 
ternal or subjective as opposed to external or objective causa- 
tion. Thus all my conscious activities or volitions are the effect 
of myself and not of external objects. The distinction here 
made is designed to admit the fact that all volitions are caused 
and yet are not subject to the law of mechanical necessity, which 
would have to be the case were freedom impossible from the 
point of view of causation. The argument against free will 
from the position of universal causation assumes that freedom 
means causeless volition. But when we admit that volition 
must have a cause and distinguish between mechanical and 
immanent causes referring free action to the latter, appeal to 
the law of causation no longer avails to disprove freedom. This 
ought to be^ apparent to every one. In fact, freedom has 
always meant free agency, and free agency is free causation, a 
form of thought which no one has conceived as opposed to any 
doctrine of cause except mechanical causes. A free agent or 
cause is one in which the power resides to originate an effect, 
and hence the doctrine of free will in its definition and concep- 
tion does not stand opposed to that of universal causation ; it 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 175 

opposes none but the notion of external causes or necessity. It 
may be a fact that no such power of free agency or spontaneity 
exists, but it is no disproof of it to appeal to universal causa- 
tion. This appeal can establish nothing except that volitions 
are caused, but not that they are mechanically necessitated. 
Hence the reference to the universal law of cause and effect 
either begs the question by assuming that the only law of causa- 
tion is a mechanical one, or it places its reliance upon an equiv- 
ocation. Subjective causation conceives the whole problem in 
perfect consistency with freedom and the caused nature of voli- 
tions at the same time. 

However, it should be observed that this doctrine of subjec- 
tive determinism, though it removes the objection from the 
general law of cause and effect, does not prove the freedom of 
velleity or the possibility of alternative choice. It is not rele- 
vant to that issue, except that it will be a preliminary step to 
it. It can prove nothing but spontaneity. Subjective determin- 
ism or exemption from mechanical causes may not go any 
farther than spontaneous or automatic actions. But this at 
least must be true in order to condition any farther power of 
volition, and when it is proved, we have not only a doctrine 
which puts decided limitations upon that of mechanical neces- 
sity, but also a position which removes all a priori objections to 
freedom in the true sense. If one exception to mechanical 
causes in originating an event be found, there is nothing in the 
nature of things to render the supposition of another exception 
unreasonable. At the same time, we must admit that the 
argument here does not prove anything more than the freedom 
of spontaneity. 

It is proper to call attention here to the several meanings of 
the term cause as affecting the question. This term is some- 
times used in a generic and sometimes in a specific sense. It is 
the confusion between these two meanings which constitutes both 
the plausibility and the weakness of the determinist theory as 
usually understood. In its general sense cause denotes any 
antecedent whatever which may be regarded as the producer of 



176 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

events. But specifically it has three different conceptions at- 
tached to it : (a) An antecedent event or phenomenon which 
conditions another event. For instance, the motion of a tree 
caused by the wind, which in turn is caused by something else ; 
the sound of a falling stone which has been put into motion by 
some other agency ; the loss of property by a conflagration which 
is caused by some other event. Here cause means the imme- 
diate antecedent event which produces or necessitates the suc- 
ceeding one. (b) An object, being, or force which produces an 
effect either of itself or mediately through other agencies. For 
example, the sun as a cause of heat, soil as the cause of growth, 
animals as the cause of their actions, in all of which cases the 
immediate cause is not conceived as an event determined or 
brought into existence by another immediate event. The sub- 
jects have a certain amount of relative permanence, (c) The 
sum of all the conditions, whether events or things, or both com- 
bined, that are necessary to the production of an effect. For 
example, organization as a cause of growth, comprising various 
kinds of matter, a specific temperature, capacity of assimilation, 
etc. Again, the various complementary conditions which pro- 
duce sound, as the existence of two bodies with sonorous proper- 
ties, their impact, the action of one and the reaction of the 
other, etc. In fact, all phenomena are probably complicated 
with complex conditions of this kind. 

But it is only the first of these conceptions that can be 
opposed to freedom in any sense of the term, and this is iden- 
tical with the notion of mechanical cause, which is conceived 
either as one event producing another, or as one external force 
determining the action of another. It is even open to serious 
question whether this is a true conception of a cause at all.* 
But we shall not quarrel with usage. It is sufficient to say that 
no freedomist in admitting the causation of volitions conceives it 
as merely the production of one event by another, except per- 
haps those who speak of the motive as the cause. At any rate 

* Philosophical Review, Vol. III., pp. 1-13. Article : Kants Third Anti- 
nomy. 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 177 

cause used in the second sense is perfectly compatible with free- 
dom, though it does not establish anything more than the free- 
dom of spontaneity. 

2. The Distinction between the Freedom of Voli- 
tions and the Freedom of the Will. — We constantly 
speak of our acts as free as if they were such in the same sense 
that the will is free. But, strictly speaking, this is not the case. 
A volition is an event, and as such is necessitated by an antece- 
dent. That is to say, given the antecedent the volition must take 
place, and hence the necessity would seem to contradict its free- 
dom. But the fact is, such freedom as volitions may be said to 
have, is a derived or a borrowed freedom, reflected merely from 
the freedom of the agent of whom they are the acts. This is the 
reason that we can admit that all acts of will are " caused," and 
as acts come from a cause external to themselves, but it is not 
" caused ; " that is, produced or brought into existence at the time, 
by some other event or thing. The will is more or less permanent, 
as the subject of volitions and is a cause of them, as an ante- 
cedent which can originate them, though they are caused with- 
out any ability to originate themselves. We speak of their 
freedom only in the sense that they can be prevented by the sub- 
ject, who is not absolutely conditioned by any antecedent event at 
the time. 

This distinction between free acts and free will must be kept 
clear under all circumstances, since it enables us, if we like, to 
admit determinism or necessitarianism of any kind we choose in 
regard to volition, while denying it of the will. A volition is an 
act, an event, a phenomenon, having a beginuing in time and 
originated by something else than itself, and so may be necessi- 
tated to that extent. ,The will is not an event, act, or phenome- 
non having its beginning immediately antecedent to the volition. 
It is simply the subject or agent of the volition. It is not neces- 
sary to regard it as a separate faculty of the mind, as probably 
some psychologists have conceived it. It may be considered as 
the name of the whole mind in a certain relation, or exercising 
a certain function, namely, that of choice and volition. Hence 



178 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

it is the subject of actions which it causes in itself. Now, it will 
be free when it acts independently of external forces, while a 
volition, as such, cannot be free in the sense of spontaneously oc- 
curring, or of spontaneously originating any other event. This 
analysis explains the paradox we have already remarked in the 
philosophy of Kant. It will be remembered that he said the will 
as a phenomenon is determined, but as a noumenon or thing in 
itself, is free. Translated into common language this is only to 
say that volition, the will as a phenomenon, is caused by some- 
thing external to itself, but that the will as subject, as a nou- 
menon or thing in itself, is not caused or determined ; that is, 
created at the time that it produces a volition. It is a free cause 
in the sense that it spontaneously originates something, even 
though the occasion for it is some external stimulus. The external 
influence may make it necessary to act, or perhaps prudent to do 
so, but it does not determine what the act shall be or the direc- 
tion of it. This is an original spontaneity of the mind. 

3. The Uniformity and Predictability of Events is 
not a Proof of their Necessity. — The plausibility of the 
argument for necessitarianism here criticised is derived wholly 
from its comparison with the uniformity of nature where neces- 
sity is unquestioned. But the comparison is illusory. It is not 
the mere fact of uniformity in nature that proves the necessity of 
the events so caused, but it is the nature of the causes operating. 
Our conception of a physical cause is that of an unconscious force 
incapable of choosing between alternatives, and hence we can 
conceive only one effect possible in the case. Consequently, 
when we observe what is evidently the effect of mechanical forces, 
whether uniform or not, we adjudge it as necessary. But its 
uniformity does not determine the nature of its cause. Physical 
forces must produce uniform effects, but uniformity is not a 
proof of necessity. This is to say, that necessary agencies are 
uniform, but uniform agencies are not convertible with the neces- 
sary. Uniform actions may exist without being necessary in any 
sense that there could be no alternative to them. 

It is true, however, that it is natural to infer necessary where 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 179 

we observe uniform connection. In fact, uniformity is, in the 
last analysis of our know-ledge, the evidence upon which we de- 
pend for our belief in necessary connection. We probably learn 
that matter acts through necessary causes from our observation 
of the fact of uniformity in its conduct. But we must remember 
that the inference drawn from uniform to necessary connection 
is only an inductive one and at most cannot go beyond a proba- 
bility. But it is not demonstrative proof of necessity ; and as 
long as it is not this, it is open to conceive some other than a 
necessary agent as the cause of the phenomenon. Hence human 
volitions might be ever so uniform, as in rational beings they 
would be, without entitling us to suppose that they were ne- 
cessitated. The only necessity that is opposed to freedom is the 
necessity of physical causation, which does not deliberate, and is 
not conscious either of the end to which it moves or of any pos- 
sible alternative. But the will itself, not being necessitated at 
the time of its action, prevents the act from being necessary, how- 
ever uniform it may be. 

If asked, what then is the evidence of free will, we can only 
say that we are not yet required to state this. Our present duty 
is fulfilled if we show that uniform action does not exclude free- 
dom, so that reference to habit, uniformity of conduct, as in 
suicide, illegitimacy, etc., and predictability of human conduct, 
as proving necessitarianism, can be repudiated as a petitio prin- 
cipii. It is sufficient for the present to maintain a verdict of 
" not proven " against that theory. 

* 4. The Relation of Motives to Volition and to 
the Will. — The argument against freedom from the preva- 
lence of the strongest motive derives its plausibility and strength 
from two facts : first, from the old beliefs that motives are the 
causes of volition, and second, from their comparison in this 
formula with the resultant of physical forces. If two forces com- 
pete with each other, the stronger must prevail and determines 
what the effect shall be. Hence, if two motives offer different 
attractions to the will, it is very natural to resort to the compari- 
son with conflicting physical forces in order to explain the 



180 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

effect. But the comparison, though a very happy one for its 
purposes, is wholly an illusory one in regard to the central ques- 
tion at issue. It wholly mistakes the nature of a motive and its 
relation to volition. A careful examination of these facts will 
modify the argument based upon* the analogy to which reference 
has been made. 

In the first place, however, it is open to the freedomist to 
question the strict propriety of the expression "strongest 
motive," as at once calculated to lead the mind astray. In so 
far as motives are ideas of ends, we do not see how the attribute 
of "strength" can be ascribed to them at all. Ideas are not 
distinguished by degrees of strength as forces are. The term ap- 
plies to them only in a metaphorical sense. Then, in so far as 
motives are desires they are more properly distinguished by 
preferences than by strength, so that again the term is metaphor- 
ical and misleads us by a false comparison with physical forces. 
But the convenience of the expression and the fixity of it in 
established usage is such that it is not easy to dislodge it, and it 
is not necessary to do so as long as we can eliminate its influ- 
ence by showing the mistaken assumptions at the basis of it. 
Hence we may admit, so far as the argument is concerned, that 
the strongest motive will always prevail when we mean only 
that the consciousness of a preferred interest or duty will deter- 
mine, that is, decide the volition. We can then criticise the 
doctrine assumed in it. 

We said that necessitarians, in so far as they rely upon the 
idea that the strongest motive must determine volition, assume, 
either consciously or unconsciously, that motives are causes of 
volition. The tendency to this assumption is inherited from that 
period when they were regarded in no other light, and when 
even instincts could be considered as "motives." The very 
term is drawn from mechanical science and carries with it me- 
chanical associations. In mechanics " motive " is a force which 
impels machinery, and so is an antecedent cause of motion. 
Thus steam, gas, water, electricity are " motives " or " motive" 
forces, though recent usage, for the sake of avoiding the practice 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 181 

of the moral sciences, where the term implies purpose as well, 
inclines to adopt the phrase motor forces instead. Hence in the 
physical sciences " motives " are causes. But in moral science 
the term expresses, as already defined, first an idea of an end, 
in which there is no causal force whatever, and second an ele- 
ment of desire which expresses an order of preference rather 
than of force or cause, though it is unquestionably very inti- 
mately related to volition. But the question whether it is the 
cause of it in any sense whatever depends, in the last analysis, 
upon the farther question whether the volition can be distin- 
guished in all instances from the motive. The term " volition " 
is, after all, an ambiguous one. It sometimes denotes the mus- 
cular movement of the bod}' immediately initiated by the will ; 
again it more frequently denotes the executive or determining 
act which results in a muscular movement. This is the concep- 
tion of it which distinguishes it from choice, which is also an act 
of will, and is a volition, though it is not an executive volition. 
An executive volition is merely the act of will which mediates 
between an internal decision and the external act necessary to 
realize it, but it is not the only act of the will which involves 
the question of freedom or which can be called voluntary. In 
this respect the choice is also a volition : it is a voluntary de- 
termination between two alternatives and employs the whole 
function of the will as a free and moral agent. The executive 
act is responsible only for the objective result, not for the choice 
which determines the character of the ageut. Now, it is inter- 
esting to observe that no one ever speaks of the motive as deter- 
mining or causing the choice. AVe speak of the reason for a 
choice, or of the preference which it indicates, but not of any- 
thing that would imply a dynamic power on the part of the 
" motive " to produce the choice, and yet it is an act of the will 
requiring as much of a " motive " cause, if such is ever required, 
as a volition is supposed to have. The whole question of free- 
dom must be decided, not merely by concluding whether a man 
can perform this or that volition or not, but also by settling 
whether he can choose or not. If he is not free he cannot 



182 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS , 

choose, but if he can choose between alternatives, the farther 
question is whether the motive is the efficient or dynamic rather 
than the final cause of the choice. The former, however, no one 
seems inclined to assert. Unless the condition of choice be dy- 
namic or efficient there is no ground for laying any stress upon 
the strongest motive, simply because the whole problem of free- 
dom has to be decided before we reach the phenomenon of ex- 
ecutive volition. But as we seem only to have reasons, not mo- 
tives, for choice, the only question is whether desire, which is one 
of the two fundamental elements of motives, must issue in voli- 
tion before a choice can be made. If it must, the argument 
would be stronger against freedom ; if not, as is generally, if not 
always, the case, the argument is altogether in favor of freedom. 
Again, there is another way of considering the relation of the 
two facts. Assuming that motives are antecedents and volitions 
consequents, we see that there may be the same uniform order 
and relation between them that in nature generally gives rise to 
the supposition that the antecedent is the cause; and as the 
motive can in no manner be eliminated from rational actions the 
notion that they are causes seems to be very strong. But there 
is an illusion here, due, first to a merely accidental resemblance 
between this series of events and those in nature where the infer- 
ence from antecedent to cause is justifiable, though we must 
remember that it does not carry with it its own proof; and in the 
second place, to disregarding the relation between the mind and 
its motives and volitions. It is a very important fact in this dis- 
cussion that the motive is as much the product of the mind as is 
the volition. They are both phenomena or functions of the same 
subject, so that it is at least difficult to see how one can possibly 
be the cause of the other. If the motive were some event apart 
from the mind and produced the volition, the supposition of 
its causal character would be a much more tenable one. But 
so far from this being the case, the motive is always a product 
of the mind, and so also is the volition, the two being only in 
the position of invariable concomitants. If the motive is to be 
the cause we must suppose that it acts on the mind after the 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 183 

mind has produced it itself, and that somehow the volition must 
be the product of the mind or will and the effect of the motive 
at the same time. The fact is, that the mind is the cause of 
both phenomena, rather than one of them being the cause of 
the other. Now, as the motive is the product of the mind and 
not of external stimulus — that is, the whole nature and con- 
tent of the motive is the creation of the mind — there must at 
least be the freedom of spontaneity in originating this phenom- 
enon itself, at least its force and character, if not the reason 
for its occurrence, so that there is still a way open for delib- 
eration as between the rise of desire and the occurrence of 
volition, which, as we have seen, is the direct product of the 
will, and this deliberation cuts off the chance of a causal nexus 
between the motive and the volition. Consequently when the 
mind deliberates between a desire and a volition the motive 
cannot be a cause, and if it is not always a cause, there is no 
reason to suppose that it is at any time of the nature of a 
causal influence, but only an index of the mind's nature and a 
concomitant of its volitions. Moreover, it is possible to contend 
that the motive or desire is always the same and has the same 
ultimate end in view with a given individual, while it is the 
means to this end which vary and present alternatives. Conse- 
quently if the motive be the same and is the cause of the choice 
and volition, these latter should always be the same. But they 
are different, so that some other power has to be invoked to 
account for the result than the causal influence of the motive. 
The causal agency of the mind and will in the production of 
both events alike is this power, and it is neither created by the 
motive nor determined causally in its action by anything except 
its own nature, and that is all that the doctrine of freedom asks 
for. The nature of a thing can just as well be free as it can be 
anything else. Of course, it may require to be proved by better 
evidence than its a priori possibility, and this may be forth- 
coming in the positive arguments. But for the present it suffices 
to note that the argument from the influence of stronger motives 
does not stand in the way of the supposition of freedom, because 



184 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the conception of the causality of motives, lurking at the basis of 
it, is an illusion ; at least, any such causality as supposes a 
direct dynamic effect on volition without supposing the inter- 
mediate free agency of the mind or will. 

5. The Equivocal Nature of the Argument from Char- 
acter. — The generally admitted supposition that a man will act 
according to his character gets its force wholly from an illusion 
created partly by an equivocation in the term " character " and 
partly by assuming the whole question in supposing that the- 
" character " of the mind is necessarily fixed in the same sense 
as that of material objects. Now, the term " character " can 
mean only two things apart from its etymological import, which 
is that of a sign or mark by which a thing may be identified. 
First, it may denote the uniformity of my actions and purposes, 
and second, the nature of my being as expressed in actions. In 
the first of these meanings it is apparent that character is only a 
name for the way in which I do act, not the name for a cause of 
my action, or for the way I must act. In fact moral character, 
ever since Aristotle, has expressed what the will produces itself, 
not what either produces the will or causes volition. The will 
gives rise to " character" in the first sense, so that even if it be 
regarded as the cause of the volition, the freedom of the will 
would not be interfered with by this relation. But being only 
a name for the uniformity of actual volition, while it is regarded 
as the product of the will, it can in no sense be said to deter- 
mine volition, but rather perhaps to be produced by it. 

The second meaning of the term to express the fixed nature of 
the subject, as evidenced by the uniformity of volition, is much 
more forcible in the case. We are in the habit of saying and 
thinking that matter must act according to its nature and that 
it cannot act otherwise, these modes of expression being taken as 
identical with the necessity of its actions. Hence, when we 
apply the same formula to the mind we carry with it the same 
implication. But while it might be true that the mind must act 
according to its nature, that " nature " might be free, and it may 
be begging the question to assume that it is like material objects 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 185 

in this respect. Freedom could be as much a part of the nature 
or " character " of a subject as necessity, so that the mere term 
does not carry with it any necessary limitations upon mental 
capacity. Moreover, we may ask whether a free agent could be 
supposed to act in any other way than according to his " charac- 
ter " or nature. If the necessity of acting according to one's 
nature is opposed to freedom, then to be free one must not act 
according to his nature. Now, in the first place, while not act- 
ing according to one's nature might prove that our nature did 
not coerce us, this condition is not necessary to the case. The 
proof of freedom is not a necessary condition of its existence. It 
may exist under conditions that betray no evidence of it. Of 
course, we require proof of it before asserting it, but the absence 
of that specific proof does not justify us in denying the fact of 
freedom which may exist independently of the proof of it. But 
in the second place, not to press the first case, if a free agent does 
not act according to his nature it must be either because he acts 
according to the nature of something else or because his own 
nature counts for nothing in the effect. Under the first of these 
two conditions he certainly would not be free (objective deter- 
minism). But every one admits that a man is the cause of his 
own volitions, otherwise they are not volitions at all, and hence 
no one believes that, when he causes his own volitions, he acts 
according to any other nature than his own. On the other hand, 
if to be free a man's nature must count for nothing in his actions, 
then it follows either that a free nature could not conceivably be 
the cause of its own actions, or that no nature at all is required 
to bring about a volition, or that man does not and cannot act 
at all. Every one of these suppositions are so manifestly absurd, 
so contrary to fact and conception, that we can only believe that 
action according to one's nature, and the necessity of such action, 
does not stand in the way of freedom, because for aught that we 
know that nature may be free. 

Why, then, do we feel the force of the argument against free- 
dom when we see the limitations of character asserted? We 
unquestionably commiserate, and to some extent excuse, the con- 



186 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

firmed drunkard for his habits, the habitual criminal for his 
temptations, and the passionate man for his explosions of feeling 
and passion. It would seem that nature and character do im- 
pose limitations upon choice in spite of the apparent conclusive- 
ness of the criticism we have just advanced. But here is where 
the illusion arises from the two meanings of the term. There 
are two opposite propositions which can be affirmed and both of 
which can be true at the same time, when allowance is made for 
the equivocation of one of their terms. Thus if " character " ex- 
presses the nature of the subject, then the necessity of acting 
according to that nature is not opposed to freedom, and we 
should not expect the subject to act otherwise or to be able to 
act otherwise. On the other hand, if "character" expresses 
nothing but one's actual habits, the necessity of action according 
to those would limit freedom. But we expect men, at least, to 
be able to act otherwise than they actually do, because we con- 
ceive that it is they and not their habits (" character ") that are 
the cause of their volitions. That is to say, a man can act other- 
wise than according to his actual habits, though he cannot act 
otherwise than his nature determines. The former condition 
proves his freedom and the latter does not oppose it. The only 
action determined by character which would not be free is that 
which would be caused by habits. But as no one even suspects 
this condition of things there is no excuse for the argument 
except the illusion produced by the equivocal meaning of " char- 
acter." 

6. The Limitations of Hekepity. — The argument against 
freedom from the fact of heredity is by far the strongest one to 
which the necessitarian can appeal. We certainly feel that 
inherited tendencies place limitations upon what we can expect 
of the individual who is affected by them. Hereditary tendencies 
to drink, to commit crime, to practice vice, to lead a life of idle- 
ness and poverty, or to act in any other particular way, are cer- 
tainly handicapping qualities in the struggle for existence which 
seem to condemn the individual to a course that is not only op- 
posed to his interests, but also appears beyond his reach and our 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 187 

expectations of his capacity to realize, while the inheritance of 
the opposite qualities makes the individual quite as much of 
an automaton, and insures that his virtues shall be too natural 
to deserve the credit of those which accompany a struggle and 
involve freedom. Hence we are not disposed to slur over this 
argument. But it is proper to define its limitations, and possibly 
to show that it circumscribes responsibility more than it does 
freedom. 

In the first place, the strength of the argument lies in its com- 
bination of that from the causal nature of motives and of that 
from the necessity of acting in accordance with one's character, 
and adds to it the notion that the specific tendency is not due to 
the habits or will of the individual subject. This makes the ar- 
gument from heredity rather striking. But there is a qualifica- 
tion which weakens it somewhat when we return to the previous 
discussions, where we attempted to show that motives are not 
causes and that action according to one's nature is not neces- 
sarily opposed to freedom. It all depends on what that nature 
is. These opinions need not be restated. It is enough to limit 
the argument from heredity by showing the doubtful character 
of its assumptions. But there are at least two other facts bear- 
ing upon its inconclusiveness. The first is that the general doc- 
trine and conception of heredity does not hinder us from suppos- 
ing that freedom itself might be inherited. Grant that some 
persons are not free, owing to inherited disposition in special 
directions, could not some inherit that balanced nature which 
freedom is supposed to imply ? As for myself, I see nothing in 
the mere fact of heredity to oppose it to freedom, but it must 
show tendencies which are as fixed and as uncontrollable as blind 
instincts in order to wholly dislodge freedom. The second fact 
is more important, and it grows out of the last remark. Heredity, 
in cases even of the worst kind, does not show impulses or ten- 
dencies that are absolutely unmodifiable by the individual. Even 
the so-called blind instincts are often variable with environment. 
Hereditary deviations from normal life do not, perhaps, in any 
cases show absolute inadjustability to environment or to condi- 



188 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

tions that affect the personal welfare of the subject. If they did 
show this, if they represented an absolutely fixed impulse or 
instinct that could not regulate the 1 time or place of its gratifica- 
tion, we might talk about the want of freedom. But this is, per- 
haps, never the case. Hereditary criminal and vicious tenden- 
cies are often accompanied by as much deliberation, calmness, 
and judicious selection of opportune times and places as the 
sanest minds would exhibit, and this only proves that their incli- 
nations are not wholly uncontrollable. No doubt their strong 
temptations and the handicapping influence of persistent desires 
against the will are palliating circumstances when we come to 
take account of their responsibilities and the need of an environ- 
ment which might offer competing motives with those that are 
predominant. But they are not a disproof of the agent's free- 
dom, because if the external environment be made sufficiently press- 
ing at the right point hereditary inclinations will almost invariably 
yield to it, which could never be the case if the agent had no capac- 
ity for this adjustment. This is only to say that the retention of 
the capacity for conscious adjustment to environment on the part 
of those who are burdened with specifie hereditary tendencies, 
disturbing the balance of sane and healthy functions, is all that 
is necessary for the possession of at least a measure of freedom. 
Moreover, granting that some are not so qualified, we cannot 
argue from the exceptional and abnormal case to the normal, be- 
cause it may be that freedom is the very distinction between 
them. The argument from heredity, therefore, has very decided 
limitations. 

7. Environment Limits Kesponsibility and not Free- 
dom. — Very little needs to be said in order to dislodge the 
argument from environment against freedom. The doctrine of 
heredity derives its force from the fact that it refers wholly 
to influences within the nature of the individual. But environ- 
ment is wholly an external medium and the argument from 
it must be confined to objective determinism, which no one 
admits. Environment does undoubtedly impose decided limita- 
tions upon our liberty, or physico-political freedom as defined, 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 189 

and therefore limits responsibility, but it does not determine 
volitions. If we adjust ourselves to it, the act represents our 
choice of the prudent rather than the imprudent, but not a loss 
of freedom. The determinist here imagines that in order to 
be free we should be able to choose either alternative with 
impunity, but in assuming this he has the physico-political con- 
ception of freedom, that is, liberty, in view, and not velleity or 
the capacity of alternative choice, which is the question at 
issue. It is true that the subject has not the former capacity, 
but he can choose either to adjust himself to environment, or to 
overcome it, and this establishes his velleity so far as external 
inflfiences are concerned. But his responsibility is very much 
modified. 

8. The Confusion of Prescience and Predestination. 
— We shall not, in a treatise of Ethics, examine the merits and 
demerits of the theological questions growing out of the doctrine 
of predestination. But apart from those its relation to freedom 
may be briefly discussed. If volitions are absolutely pre- 
destined there can be no doubt that the will is not free, because 
predestination of this kind is fatalism pure and simple. But 
mere prescience of them is not opposed to freedom. It is 
merely foreknowledge of what will take place, not the causation 
of it. But to fix the occurrence of an event beyond any 
prevention whatever is to destroy the freedom of any agent con- 
nected with it, because such an agent would be the mere instru- 
ment or medium, not the original cause of the event, which 
he should be in order to have any form of freedom whatever. 
However, the theological doctrine of predestination does not 
always take this form, and it may be seriously questioned 
whether, when it does, it has any canonic authority for its view 
of predestined volitions. With St. Paul predestination most 
probably was limited to the fixing beforehand of man's salva- 
tion, or lot hereafter, conditioned on a foreknowledge of what 
he would do. This is not the predestination of his volitions, but 
only of the consequences of foreknown volitions, which is a very 
different thin 2:. • 



190 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

2d. Positive Arguments — The negative arguments were said 
merely to modify or remove the difficulties involved in the 
objections to freedom, and now we come to such arguments as 
create more positive support for the doctrine. Like the others 
they have their limitations. They do not mean to prove, where 
they are supposed to prove anything at all, that all persons are 
free, or equally free, but only that where certain conditions are 
fulfilled freedom can fairly be entitled to exist. There may be 
many exceptions. But if any genuine cases of freedom exist, we 
have a basis for a rational system of Ethics and practical prin- 
ciples for the territory covered by those conditions. Nor do 
they all apply to the same kind of freedom, as will be* re- 
marked when discussing them. 

1. The Priority of Free to Necessary Causation. — 
The law of causation is supposed to imply necessity of some 
kind, and so it does; but is only the necessity of the effect, 
not the necessity of the cause. It is the effect which must 
occur if the causes act, but there is no reason in that fact for 
supposing that the cause must act also. If there be any neces- 
sity about the action of the cause in the case it will be for 
the reason that it too is an effect of some antecedent cause, and 
not because it is an efficient agency. The necessity is thus 
purely relative to the effect. Let us illustrate. If a stone fall 
upon a hard surface it will very certainly make a noise and 
probably produce some additional effects. These must occur, the 
conditions being what they are ; there is no alternative to them. 
They are the necessary consequence of the stone's falling. But 
there is nothing implied in this fact to the effect that the stone 
must have fallen. The necessity of the effect of its fall, once it 
is set in motion, does not prove the necessity of its falling. This 
may have its cause, of course ; but we should not seek for it if 
we did not know that the fall was an event, an effect, which had 
its beginning. Its necessity depends wholly upon its being 
an effect. But perhaps the illustration will appear more forci- 
ble if we put it in another form. If I strike the table the effect 
will at least be a noise. This is a necessary consequence of my 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 191 

act. But would any one suspect the necessity of my act other 
than its being the effect of my will ? 

All this indicates that " necessity " does not express any ab- 
solute form of action or condition, but only the relative fixity 
of events when their causes once act. There must be some orig- 
inal efficiency which is not an effect in order to get events into 
existence at all, so that necessary phenomena are subsequent to 
something that is not necessary. In this way we indicate that 
the law of mechanical causation is not the most universal law of 
causal agency, for the reason that it is limited to the necessary 
occurrence of the effect and does not apply to the action of an- 
tecedents, unless they too are effects. But it can never apply 
to causes that are not effects or events. Free or spontaneous 
causation, therefore, must be prior to any other kind as a condi- 
tion of its existence. This can be shown in the following manner : 
. "We must suppose a beginning in time for all events or phe- 
nomena. They are not events unless they have such an origin, 
and it is on the ground of a beginning in time that we look for a 
cause of events. Now, this cause must be either an antecedent 
event or something which is not an event. There can be no 
third alternative. If an event is caused by an antecedent event, 
there must be a series of such events, and this series must be 
either finite or infinite. If the series be finite it has a beginning 
in time, and the first event of the series would either not be 
caused at all, in which case it would have a free or non-necessi- 
tated origin, or its cause would not be an antecedent event, but 
something else than an event, and in this case would be necessi- 
tated neither in its existence nor its action. On the other hand, 
if the series is infinite it has no beginning in time and there is 
neither a first event in the series nor an antecedent event to the 
series to be its cause.' An infinite series, therefore, cannot have 
an event in time for its cause, but must be conditioned by some- 
thing which is not an event. We say nothing about the impos- 
sibility of an infinite series composed of finite units. This may 
be assumed as a vantage ground to prove that the series must 
be finite, and so ultimately caused by something outside of it 



192 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

and not determined by an event. But we can admit, for the 
sake of an argument at least, that an infinite series of events 
is possible ; but it is possible only on the supposition that the 
cause of the series is not -an event, because there can be no an- 
tecedent to that which has no beginning in time. Hence the 
series, w T hether finite or infinite, cannot have an event for its 
cause. That is to say, the cause must be that which is itself not 
caused, and so must be free or spontaneous in its action. On 
the other hand, if the cause be that which is not an event it can- 
not be subject to the law of mechanical causation, which would 
make it dependent upon an antecedent, which it is not in the 
terms of the conclusion just reached. If it acts at all, therefore, 
it acts spontaneously, if not, there will be no event to account for. 
But all agree that events or phenomena are admitted facts. 
They are either caused or not caused. If caused, they ulti- 
mately depend, as the previous argument shows, upon that 
which is not caused, but free or spontaneous. If not caused 
they are free again, or cases of spontaneous generation, and there 
is no need to admit any doctrine of causation whatever. Every- 
thing — that is, all events — would be free and not necessitated ; no 
antecedent and no agent would cause or necessitate them, and 
w T e should have spontaneity at the expense of the very law 01 
causation which is supposed to nullify the claims of freedom. 
But since the self-origination of events without a subject or 
ground of them is either absurd or opposed to science we are left 
to suppose them caused with the consequence previously proved ; 
that ultimately the cause must be something which is not an 
event, and which will not itself be caused unless it shows the 
marks of an effect or event ; which only puts the absolute one 
step further back. And this absolute and spontaneous cause 
must be found either because the finite series must be originated 
by that which is not an event or because an infinite series can 
have no antecedent. This, of course, results in the conclusion 
that a true cause is not an antecedent or transcendental thing or 
phenomenon, but a subject which is contemporaneous with the 
act or immanent in it. 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 193 

It is apparent from this argument that necessity is only a 
property of events, not of their causes, except that we apply cause 
in an equivocal sense to denote an antecedent conditioning the 
effect. But taken as the agent which acts, the cause is not neces- 
sitated, as is an event which that cause produces. If it act at all 
it must be as an originating cause, and hence the notion of free- 
dom has both the logical and the natural priority to necessity. 
That is to say, as a property of existence it is prior to necessity, 
so that every theory of necessitarianism must be of the relative 
and wholly subordinate to freedom which conditions it. It must 
be remarked, however, that the freedom established by the argu- 
ment is not the freedom of velleity, but only of spontaneity. The 
whole force of the argument will be lost if we suppose that it can 
prove the capacity for alternative choice. It does nothing of 
the kind, and cannot be claimed to prove more than spontaneity, 
and those who rely upon it to make out the case against deter- 
minism or necessitarianism of every form are following a will o' 
the wisp ; for the necessitarianism which is generally maintained 
only opposes velleity, and may be absolutely identical with the 
notion of spontaneity as revealed in psycho-dynamic and instinc- 
tive actions, supposing that the latter are not reflexes, but auto- 
matic. The real and most important issue, as we have already 
indicated, regards velleity or the capacity of alternative choice. 

But if this argument does not prove the one point desirable, 
it removes all a priori objections to freedom from the stand- 
point of the law of causation. It is the universality of the 
law of causation, or rather the presumed universality of it, 
and conceived mechanically at that, which creates the main 
difficulty with freedom in most minds. But when we show, 
on the one hand, that mechanical causation cannot be uni- 
versal, that we are' obliged ultimately to accept spontaneity 
or free agency of that kind as prior to necessity, and on the 
other, that causation by antecedent events is not the true or 
only conception of cause, we have proved at least one excep- 
tion to the principle invoked by physical science, and nothing 
after that exists in the principle to prevent us from adding the 



194 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

capacity of alternative choice to the idea of a first cause ; that 
is, adding velleity to spontaneity, if only there be evidence forth- 
coming that it is a fact as well as a possibility. Moreover, the 
advantage of proving spontaneity in this way is, that it is not 
conditioned upon a spiritualistic or idealistic view of things. It 
is perfectly compatible with the materialistic theory of the uni- 
verse : in fact, must be assumed by that theory as a condition of 
its own account of phonomena. Materialism and mechanism, 
therefore, cannot stand out against first causes. Whether they 
are consistent with alternative choice or not must be determined 
by the question whether matter is conscious or not. Its a priori 
power, however, against freedom is thoroughly eviscerated by 
the necessity of its assuming spontaneity and surrendering the 
absolute universality of mechanical causation. With this con- 
clusion we may turn to the evidence for freedom as the capacity 
for alternative choice, although the next argument has a bearing 
upon both kinds of psychological freedom. 

2. The Fact of Deliberation. — Ever since the time of 
Aristotle the fact of deliberative actions has played an important 
role in the problem of freedom. It has, in fact, been made 
essential to real freedom, for the reason that, on the one hand, 
it is contrasted with impulse which seems to represent the type 
of reflex actions, and presumably not free, and on the other hand, 
it seems to imply that equilibrium between motives which the 
indeterminist conceived as essential to freedom. It is easy to see 
why deliberation should be a forcible fact in the case, because if 
a volition is the effect of a " motive," it should follow immedi- 
ately upon the occurrence of the motive. But if there is delib- 
eration between "motives," they do not seem to have causal 
power to initiate the volition until a prior causal power directs 
them, and this would be the deliberating subject. It was natural, 
therefore, when the conception of mechanical causation dominated 
the age in which resort was made to hesitation between alterna- 
tives, that this idea of deliberation should present an exception to 
that way of viewing the connection of events. Whether the argu- 
ment is conclusive or not we have yet to examine. In the mean- 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 195 

time we have two things to accomplish : first, to define what is 
meant by deliberation, and second, to examine the various kinds 
of human actions which are concerned in the problem. We can 
then take up the importance of deliberation as a factor in con- 
duct. We may as well remark also that its force is not the 
same in regard to all kinds of freedom. It may prove only sub- 
jective determinism in the broad sense, or merely spontaneity. 
For this reason we shall divide its functions into two kinds, and 
so consider its relation to spontaneity apart from its relation to 
velleity. In connection with the power of deliberation will also 
come up the question regarding the function of inhibition or 
arrest in mental phenomena, as an agency in the development 
from organic and reflex activities to the rational. 

(a) Definition of Deliberation. — Deliberation, so far as it 
concerns Ethics, is reflection upon alternative courses of action 
offered to the will. In general it is reflection about any object of 
consciousness or delayed attention to it. In matters of conduct 
it is hesitation about a choice or a volition, and involves a sus- 
pension of action until the mind can come to some conclusion 
about the proper course to be chosen. Thus if I am in a room 
alone where a tempting plate of delicious fruit is exposed to my 
eyes, if hungry and if the fruit were my own I might at once 
help myself to it without any hesitation and perhaps without 
thought of the consequences. But if the fruit be not my own, 
my first inclination to take it may be arrested by the thought 
that it is not my own and that I should be doing a wrong to 
take it. Then I may think that the owner will not care, or that 
I shall not be discovered, and the temptation returns. But 
again I am checked by the fear that I may be mistaken again, 
that I have no right to the fruit, etc. All the while I am simply 
deliberating about whether I shall or shall not act. Similarly, if 
I am not decided as to the prudent course among several possible 
ones offered me, I reflect upon them until I am assured, and I 
act according to the result of deliberation. All this shows a 
certain amount of control over the direction of consciousness and 
the will, and that there may be a delay between the inception of 



196 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

an idea and the effort to put it into effect. Deliberation thus 
suspends the impulsive or hasty tendencies of feeling until the 
more balanced functions of the mind give it control over influ- 
ences that might make it their victim. Such is its nature, and 
after examining the various kinds of action represented by 
development, from the lowest to the highest stages of organization, 
we may study the function of reflection in its relation to conduct. 

(b) Reflex Actions. — Keflex action is an unconscious response 
to stimulus. It is illustrated by such actions as the beating of 
the heart, the peristaltic movements of the stomach and intes- 
tines, and in a partial way, breathing and winking. There are 
probably numerous other forms, though less manifest types of 
it. But the few special cases mentioned are sufficient to make 
clear that they are not consciously caused by the subject in 
whose person they appear. The resource of explanation is sim- 
ply to maintain that they are organic reactions to stimulus and 
are no more free moral acts than is the fall of a stone. Now, as 
it is generally assumed that both in the lowest types of organic 
existence and in the earliest stages of all animal life the actions of 
such beings are only reflex or automatic, the latter being less defi- 
nite reflexes, we may readily ask the question how we ever get be- 
yond such actions. We are everywhere told that all our higher 
ideas and actions are developed from the earlier and lower, and 
if these are only sensations and reflexes we may well ask, con- 
sidering that reflex actions are neither conscious nor free, how 
the conduct we call free can possibly be so when it is only a mod- 
ified and complex form of reflex action. Throwing aside the 
absence of consciousness in the case, the entire dependence of 
reflex actions upon external stimulus makes them necessary 
events under their conditions, and if our volitions are only like 
them, with a similar kind of condition acting as the antecedent, 
they are not free. But if our actions be free in any respect and 
yet must be superimposed upon a basis of reflex functions, how 
can that result be affected ? 

(c) Impulsive Actions. — As already defined, impulsive actions 
are non-deliberative volitions, and hence represent a tendency to 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 197 

act on the temptation of the moment. They differ from reflexes 
in being conscious, but they resemble the same in the prompt- 
ness of their occurrence when suggested. They thus have a most 
important connection with . reflexes, at least in appearances. 
They do not require illustration, after all that has been said of 
them under the head of motives. But it is important to note 
that they iudicate a condition very unlike freedom to all who 
feel that deliberation is essential to it ; and as so much of man's 
conduct seems impulsive, it is a question how. he ever obtains any 
control of it, or how he can be expected to gain control of it. 

(cT) Rational Actions. — Rational actions are both conscious 
and either deliberative or the result of previous deliberation, 
while involving also right adjustment to either a constant or 
variable environment. How they are possible in a system based 
upon reflexes and impulses is the question. They are presumed 
to be free actions par excellence. They are certainly peculiar 
to the highest stages of development, and are superimposed upon 
forms of conduct which are not free. How do they originate, 
and how is free action possible, if evolved from elements contain- 
ing none of it ? 

(e) Inhibition and Its Functions. — The answer to the several 
questions which we have asked about the gradual evolution from 
reflex to rational or deliberative action is found in the part 
played by the very interesting phenomenon known as inhibition. 
Before stating its relation to deliberation, which it in reality 
makes possible, we must show what it is ; that is, define it. 

Inhibition is the arrest which the function of one nervous center, 
or the existence of one set of ideas, exerts upon the spontaneous ten- 
dency of another to dominate in action. This must be illustrated 
in order to be made more clear. A good example of inhibition 
is the delay or stoppage of the heart-beat by disturbances in the 
pneumogastric nerve, or the restraint by the brain of certain 
muscular movements mediated by the spinal cord ; the arrest of 
intestinal movements by interferences with the splanchnic nerve, 
and in respiration by interferences with the superior laryngeal 
nerve. " Similarly," says Foster, " the vaso-motor center in the 



198 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

medulla may, by impulses arriving along various afferent tracts, 
be inhibited, during which the muscular walls of various arteries 
are relaxed or augmented, whereby the tonic contraction of 
various arteries is increased." This may be called purely phy- 
siological arrest. On the other hand, psychological inhibition 
will be the arresting influence of consciousness in one direction 
against the exercise either of neural or conscious action in 
another. For instance, the concentration of attention upon 
something in the visual field will diminish the intensity of a sen- . 
sation in the tactual field, or the remembered experience of pain 
will check the tendency of a present consciousness to issue in 
muscular action. Attention upon a special object of interest 
may inhibit the influence of impressions that otherwise would 
serve as warnings of approaching danger. The effect of past 
experience will operate to restrain impulse, etc. All these show 
that the higher organisms are the seat of functions that tend to 
balance each other, one arresting the unco-ordinated action of 
another, so that when necessary the central direction of conduct 
may supplant that of external stimulus and reflex action. 

Now, unless we take account of this function of arrest the 
argument for the originally determined and necessary character 
of all our actions is very strong. It is generally assumed that 
man begins his existence as a purely reflex organism which re- 
sponds to various forms of stimulus. In this condition he can 
be neither free nor responsible in the proper sense of those 
terms. To be free the agent must be conscious, must have 
ideational motives ; that is, possess a distinct idea of an end, 
and have the capacity for deliberation. In reflex actions none 
of these conditions are present. They are wholly unconscious, 
non-reflective, and show a dependence upon some stimulus ex- 
ternal to the organism or nerve affected. If, therefore, man is 
purely a reflex organism his freedom is out of the question. 
He is merely a passive being awaiting the impulse of external 
stimulus, and for aught we should know in the case his actions 
would be nothing but the transformation or transmission of 
energy from without through another medium. They would, 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 199 

therefore, have to be treated in terms of their external causes. 
Remove the stimuli and the actions would not occur. There 
is no spontaneity assumed in reflexes, any more than in the 
motion of a falling body, and hence if all man's actions were 
simple reflexes they would be wholly determined from without. 
There could be no use in treating him as the cause of them, be- 
cause he would not so act of himself, and could not help thus 
acting if the stimulus occurred. But it is otherwise if we con- 
sider him as the subject of states of consciousness which are 
assumed to indicate the initiating power of the mind independ- 
ently of reflex stimulus. States of consciousness may be awak- 
ened by external stimuli, but neither their contents nor their 
power are determined by that source. These are determined by 
the mind, and are rather mere antecedents and conditions than 
causes of volition. They represent what we call purpose, ends, 
motives, which are not apparent in reflexes, and if man be free 
they must show the initiative -of volition to be something other 
than external stimulus, aud that he is capable of deliberating. 

Now, man is the subject both of reflex actions and of states of 
consciousness, which last are supposed to initiate free action. 
But since all students of his history, both in regard to his indi- 
vidual origin and development from a remote simple organism, 
maintain that the first functions he exhibits are merely reflex, 
the question may be raised, as already indicated, How does he 
ever get beyond them ? This is especially significant when we 
remember the very simple but striking fact that reflex-reaction 
time, which is the interval between stimulus and reaction, is shorter 
than cerebral-reaction time. That is, reactions of the spinal cord 
(in sleep, for example) occupy less time than reactions of the 
higher brain centers, the latter being supposed to exercise the 
functions of intelligence. Hence this being the case, and if re- 
flex centers must act at once upon the occurrence of stimulus, 
muscular action must take place before consciousness can either 
be awakened or influence volition. Consequently whatever 
consciousness might be able to do after it arose, if left to reflex 
functions the deed would be done before consciousness arose ; 



200 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

and any volition to the contrary would be nugatory and useless. 
The same motor organism has to bs employed by both forms of 
action, and if all acts were to follow external stimuli imme- 
diately, consciousness could not be their initiative. Hence it 
must have time to rise and to exercise its efficiency before and 
independently of the tendencies to reflex action. 

It is precisely here that inhibition or arrest, as a function of 
complex organisms, can be invoked to check the reflexes and to 
allow conscious states to mediate between stimulus and muscular 
action. For instance, it has been shown by actual experiment 
upon animals that the very presence of the cerebral mass of 
nervous matter acts upon the reflexes of the spinal cord to re- 
tard them ; that is, to lengthen reaction time. The normal 
condition, therefore, of a nervous organism, including a brain 
and a spinal cord, is one of physiological inhibition exerted by 
the higher centers upon the lower. Again, it is known that in 
sleep reaction time is quickened, and in the conscious state it is 
retarded, or intellectual activity diminishes assimilation of food 
whenever we endeavor to carry on prolonged reflection while 
the forces of the system are required for digestion. This is a 
case of psychological inhibition. It represents the arresting 
power of consciousness upon lower or other centers by virtue of 
its absorption of energy which would otherwise be expended in 
the reflex centers. But in whatever manner it may be said to 
act reaction time is retarded, the energy and promptness of re- 
flex action are diminished, and other forces are called into ex- 
istence than the mechanico-physical agencies of stimulus and 
reaction. This effect might not be sufficient to overcome or to 
compensate for the difference between reaction and cerebral 
events; but on the other hand it often is sufficient, and in 
highly organized beings is always so for any muscular actions 
connected with deliberative consciousness. The question, how- 
ever, is not how consciousness can ever usurp the functions of 
the organic system, but how it can ever find a chance to exer- 
cise motive efficiency, or enable the mind to do so, before 
some form of muscular response has made its action useless, 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 201 

Hence the first thing to be accomplished by the facts mentioned 
is to show the very wide influence exerted by every form of 
arrest which tends to equilibrate and co-ordinate the reactions 
of the organism, so that the subject may become more than a 
merely reacting agent. 

The same principle operates when we come to consider the 
inhibitions.of the higher intellectual centers upon the tendencies 
of sensation and emotion to issue in action immediately upon the 
occurrence of stimulus. This is the case with the impulses or 
impulsive actions. In a being disposed to follow the temptations 
of the moment, or to act under sudden passion, the trouble is that 
his emotions act much like reflexes, and he is the victim of 
every external circumstance that exposes him to their occur- 
rence. Unless inhibition from some source can check such a 
tendency, a man seems to be cut off from the possibility of alter- 
native choice for the lack of deliberative resources. He may be 
conscious, but not conscious of all the consequences involved in 
the action, prompted by a more or less reflex tonicity of his mus- 
cular system at the time. Hence this explosive tendency needs 
to be curbed, if he should seem to possess anything like freedom. 
Now we are told by modern psychologists that it is of the very 
nature of sensational and emotional states to influence the mus- 
cular system. Instance suggestion, sudden pains, intense anger or 
fear, etc. This is the so-called law of psycho-genesis, or the 
tendency of emotional consciousness to issue in volition, by suppo- 
sition, without reflection. But it is also a fact that such con- 
ditions do not always prevail. The natural tendencies of sensation 
and emotion are often, if not always, brought under control. 
Some influence succeeds in arresting their spontaneities. It is, of 
course, the ideational, and reflective consciousness which inhibits 
them and introduces the rational type of mental action. For 
instance, pain has an inhibitory influence on muscular action, and 
so also the idea of a prospective pain will serve as a restraint, not 
perhaps functionally, but through the will. The child putting its 
hand unwittingly into the fire is an instance of the effect of present 
pain. The consequent action is often called reflex ; but I do not 



202 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

think it is wholly such. Consciousness is too much a part of it 
to be purely reflex in all cases, if it is ever so. Then if the child 
be tempted a second time to try the same experiment out of curi- 
osity, the memory of the past experience, or the idea of the past 
pain, with the consciousness of its imminent reoccurrence, will 
arrest all tendencies to movement caused by the curiosity 
of the previous moment. One state of consciousness sup- 
presses the motor tendency of the other in the case, and the 
subject becomes a deliberative being. In this and all similar, 
cases the natural difference between the occurrence of the stimu- 
lus and the reaction, if it were reflex, is overcome, and a balance 
established between the various functions of the system, so that 
the higher states of consciousness may take possession of the field 
and interrupt the natural influence of external forces and the 
temptation to adjustment without regard to remoter conse- 
quences. 

The function of inhibition in this is perfectly clear. It is an 
organic influence to break up the pure mechanism of the system 
and to enable the higher mental states to supplant the reflex 
and impulsive tendencies of the subject. When it thus over- 
comes both forms of influence opposed to free action, the mechan- 
ical tendencies of reflex action, and the spontaneity of impulse, 
it hands the field over to deliberative and rational agencies. It 
does not constitute freedom, and may not be any element of it in 
a perfectly developed being. But in all such as are exposed to 
the limitations of organic reflexes, the temptations of present im- 
pulse, and the fixities of hereditary desire, it is a powerful agent 
for enabling reason to obtain command. It is the function 
which makes deliberation possible, and shows both the complex- 
ity of the conditions of freedom and the graduated character of 
that attribute. We should remember also that it Avill operate to 
make choice deliberative as well as to modify muscular action 
and volition. It remains, then, only to see how deliberation 
serves as evidence of the fact. 

(/) Deliberation as a Proof of Spontaneity. — Inhibition shows 
that our actions are not simple reflexes, and that they contain 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 203 

elements which cannot be developed out of reflexes of the uncon- 
scious kind. But it does not stand in the way of an immediate 
connection between external stimulus and volition through the 
idea which may supplant sensation and emotion of the impulsive 
sort. To establish the first condition of freedom, then, we must 
wholly elimiuate the determining influence of stimulus, that is, 
environment. This can be done in the following manner : 

If a man's action be in any way determined by environment, 
that is to say, if volition be the necessary consequence of his en- 
vironment, caused by it, the act must follow immediately the 
influence of stimulus. The causal nexus between stimulus 
and volition must not be interrupted or modified by any other 
cause. The law of mechanical causation requires this immediate 
connection between antecedent and consequent. There may be 
an interval between the first and the last number of a series 
of events so connected, but each effect is the immediate and 
necessary consequence of its antecedent cause, and the ultimate 
result follows without any deliberation regarding it or regarding 
any number of the series. Now, the connection between stimulus 
and volition must be either an immediate one, without interven- 
ing steps, or a series of steps directly connected, if volition is to 
be necessitated by external influences. Take the first of these 
alternatives. If I am suddenly pricked with a sharp instrument 
my movements will be directed to getting rid of the sensation or 
pain produced by the stimulus. If the volition be the mechan- 
ical effect of the stimulus, the movement must follow it at once, 
as a sound follows immediately upon the impact of two bodies ; 
and nothing could hinder it from doing so but a cause from some 
other source. There would be no deliberation possible where the 
connection was immediate. But it is a fact that the subject 
does sometimes deliberate in such emergencies. The sensation 
and the stimulus do not always issue at once in a volition 
designed to remove them. The agent may permit the stimulus 
to continue without a volition for self-defense at all, so that 
the natural and presumptive effect does not occur at all. What 
this deliberation shows, then, is that the supposed mechanical 



204 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

nexus uetween stimulus and volition is interrupted and that we 
must look to something else than the antecedent stimulus for the 
true cause of the volition. Where the nexus was uninterrupted 
there would be no direct objective evidence that any other cause 
existed, though it might be present. But when an interval of 
time exists, involving deliberation, between stimulus and volition, 
supposing them the only two members of the series in which we 
are interested, it is decided proof that the stimulus is not the 
only or true cause of the result. 

On the other hand, if there are more members than two 
in the series, and as a fact there are several, which may be 
summed up in stimulus, sensation, perception, desire, volition, 
it might be said that an interval could be involved here while 
the whole series represented a mechanical one in which each 
member was the necessary effect of its antecedent and the 
necessary cause of its consequent. But if this view of it 
be taken there could be no deliberation between any two links 
in the chain, while each event would be supposed immediately to 
produce the following. But it is a fact that we do deliberate 
between either the stimulus and the volition or between 
desire and volition, and in either case the mechanical nexus 
of external influences with the final effect is cut off and we have 
to look to the subject of volition for the true cause of it. As 
long as deliberation is a fact, therefore, objective determinism 
must be denied. In other words, the objective determinist is in 
a dilemma. If he reduces all causation to the purely mechanical 
form he must deny the fact of deliberation, because the law of 
cause and effect requires an immediate nexus between the two 
terms. On the other hand, if he admit the fact of deliberation, 
he must surrender his theory, because he assumes that the nexus 
between the presumed cause and its effect is not an immediate 
one, so that some other agent must be invoked to account for 
the result. Consequently, as no one has the foolhardiness to 
deny the fact of deliberation, the theory of objective determinism 
or mechanical necessitarianism is thrown out of court, and at 
least the freedom of spontaneity proved beyond a doubt. This 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 205 

wholly removes the time-honored argument from environment 
against freedom in the second and third senses of the term, and 
shows that we must go to the subject for the cause of volition, 
and if the theory of mechanical necessity is thus proved to be in- 
sufficient to account for the effect, at least spontaneity of some 
kind must be assumed, and this fact removes all a priori objec- 
tions to freedom of a more important kind by implying, first, 
that mechanical causation is not universal, and second, that 
there may be possibly two exceptions to it as well as one. 

But as there is practically no dispute about the fact that a 
man is the cause of his own volitions, and that they are not 
strictly determined objectively, it is not enough to disprove me- 
chanical necessitarianism. Yet there is one important point 
gained by it, and it is that we have found the evidential signifi- 
cance of deliberation while establishing at least the freedom of 
spontaneity. The possibility of velleity from the same fact has 
still to be considered. 

(g) Deliberation as Evidence of Velleity. — Though delibera- 
tion may disprove a causal nexus between external stimulus and 
volition, it will be said that it does not interfere with the final 
prevalence of the strongest motive or of character, and hence 
does not stand in the way of denying the possibility of alterna- 
tive choice. That is to say, the necessitarian will admit both 
the fact of deliberation and the falsity of objective determinism, 
and yet deny the capacity for alternative choice, holding that 
deliberation does not interfere with this limitation, that the 
strongest motive must finally prevail in spite of deliberation, 
which only delays the issue. 

The force of this position lies in the fact that motives, prop- 
erly conceived, are purely subjective events, and yet are used in 
the argument as if they were objective and did not involve the 
subject at the same time. In other words, the argument is sup- 
posed to carry with it no other implication than is involved in 
the conception of mechanical " motives," and being stated in 
the same form, creates an illusion of the identity between 
subjective and objective determinism, for the explanation of 



206 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

which we have only to refer to what has already been said 
about the import and causal efficiency of motives. For under- 
standing the relation of deliberation to their causative power 
we can examine the following, where argument from reflection 
shows much the same evidential character for velleity as it has 
shown for spontaneity. 

The force of the denial that deliberation alters the case de- 
pends wholly upon the supposition that motives determine voli- 
tion and that the strongest must prevail after the manner of 
mechanical causes. It is assumed that deliberation only delays 
the final issue, and that when it is past the existence of equal 
alternatives is past and the person has no real choice but to fol- 
low his character or the strongest motive. There are two, per- 
haps several, replies to be made to this. The first consists of the 
argument already advanced in regard to both the causality of 
motives and the relation of "character" to volition. It does 
not require to be repeated, as the student may refer to it for the 
purpose. The second is an application of the fact of delibera- 
tion and will repeat the argument for spontaneity with the sub- 
stitution of motives for stimulus. 

Motives are either the cause of volition or they are not. In 
the latter alternative their presence is not opposed to freedom, 
as the very nature of the case would imply. For if they did not 
cause it, and yet the volition takes place and objective deter- 
minism is excluded, there is nothing but the subject to account 
for the effect, this not being determined by motives, according to 
the supposition. On the other hand, if we conceive motives to 
be the cause of volition, this effect must occur immediately upon 
their occurrence in consciousness ; for there is no third step, 
except deliberation, between them and the volition, and they 
cannot be the cause of it as long as deliberation intervenes. 
Deliberation interrupts the supposed causal nexus between the 
two terms. But if the motive be the cause, this deliberation is 
impossible. We might assert either or both of two assumptions : 
first, that deliberation is an equilibrium from the conflict of equal 
and opposing motives, or second, that there are distinct kinds 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 207 

of motives, which are differently related to the law of causation. 
But this would not help us any in the case. If motives are dif- 
ferent in kind and differently related to the law of causation, the 
whole case of determinism, subjective and objective, is lost for 
the lack of a single principle to explain the result. On the 
other hand, if deliberation is only an equilibrium between equal 
and opposing motives, then either no volition can take place at 
all, or when it does take place the strongest motive prevails and 
causes it, assuming, of course, that motives can cause it at all. 
But if the conflict be between unequal motives and the strongest 
must prevail, it must do so immediately and deliberation cannot 
occur. But it is a fact that deliberation occurs and that voli- 
tions take place, which they could not do if it denoted an equi- 
librium, and hence deliberation is either not an equilibrium 
between equal motives, or it occurs in connection with the 
so-called stronger motives. If it occurs with the latter it either 
produces an equilibrium and volition occurs without being caused 
by either motive, or it interrupts all supposed causal agency in 
the strongest motive, and in both alternatives something else 
than the motive has to be the cause of the volition, and the case 
of every form of necessitarianism is lost. Hence the necessitarian 
may choose between affirming the mechanical law of causation 
of motives as well as of stimuli and the fact of deliberation. He 
cannot hold to both at the same time. The strongest motive 
either does not exist or does not prevail ; that is, has no causal 
efficiency, if deliberation takes place and interrupts its immediate 
issue in volition. It will not help matters to say that after the 
deliberation has occurred the strongest motive must then prevail, 
because whatever strength it may then be supposed to have has been 
derived from the deliberate choice and decision of the agent outside 
the series of events assumed to determine the volition. We do not 
care what takes place after reflection. The whole question of 
freedom is proved by the fact of deliberation while it exists, and 
nothing is gained by talking about the strongest motive after- 
ward, because deliberation is said to be hesitation between 
motives already existing, and if they do not effect the proper 



208 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

result at once, whether equal or unequal, it is for the reason that 
they have no causal efficiency at all in their constitution, and 
this agency must come from the reflecting subject, independently 
of the series of phenomena with which it is concerned. It pro- 
duces the motives, weighs them, and if one be stronger than 
another, determines that strength by a spontaneous act of its 
own. In fact, motives have no strength whatever except what 
the mind gives them, so that deliberation is only a proof that 
there is no causal nexus between the mental events which make 
up life and that it must be sought outside the series, and once 
outside the series freedom is guaranteed, no matter what is said 
about the result of " character," as has been already shown. 

But the argument of the necessitarian has both its strength 
and its weakness in the equivocal import of the term " motive. " 
In so far as " motive " denotes an end, or an idea of several ends 
there seem to be several alternatives offered the will, and this 
notion will give rise to the conception of a conflict, where pre- 
sumably the stronger will prevail. But in so far as " motives " 
are only ideas of ends, they have neither strength nor causal 
efficiency. No one for a moment attributes initiative power to 
simple ideas or cognitions. They never move the will, and not 
having " motive " power, causally conceived, cannot exhibit any 
moral, bat only a logical, conflict. Such thing as a struggle be- 
tween them and the prevalence of the stronger is not possible. 
On the other hand, if the term " motive " denotes the emotional 
side of the assumed condition of volition, there is more reason 
for supposing it to have causal efficiency. But in this case there 
may be only one motive, and if so a struggle is also impossible, so 
that a competition between " motives, " which the necessitarian 
admits to occur, is absurd. In fact, therefore, his whole case rests 
upon his making out that there, is only one " motive " in volition, 
and that on the causal side there is no alternative impulse to the 
one antecedent to the act. Strange to say, however, the necessi- 
tarian has never asserted this view of the case. But it is not 
only the sole conception of the problem which will bear criticism, 
but it is, in the present writer's view, the truer conception of the 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 209 

facts. " Motive," so far as it means impelling power, denotes a 
desire, and it is reasonable to claim that man can ultimately 
have but one desire, and this- is the ultimate object of his pursuit, 
pleasure, perfection, wealth, power, etc. Assuming this for the 
moment, what we mean by desires, then, is merely many objects 
of a single kind of mental state. Desire does express both an ob- 
ject of consciousness and an attraction toward it. Now, there 
may be many objects of desire, but only one feeling or impulse 
regarding them, and there can be only one ultimate object of it. 
Deliberation is, therefore, about the means to this one end. 
What is called a conflict of " motives " is only hesitation about 
the choice of means, the choice of the end already having been 
made, and in fact predetermined by the nature of the subject. 
The deliberation, then, is not between " motives," considered as 
desire, which is only one in kind, but about ideas and means. 
This is precisely the doctrine of Aristotle, and it is not a little 
surprising to see his analysis neglected on all sides. But it means, 
if accepted, that a new conception of the whole problem is re- 
quired, and it is a couception which corresponds, on the surface 
at least, to the necessitarian doctrine. 

Analyzing "motives" into ideas of end and emotional im- 
pulse, and assuming that they have causal efficiency, we find 
that this quality must belong to the emotional element, because 
ideas per se are inert. But this emotional element or desire, 
minus its cognitive aspect, can be only of one kind considered as a 
psychological cause, and with that cognitive aspect can ultimately 
have but one object. There is, then, no comparison of impulses 
possible, but only of the means for gratifying the one funda- 
mental desire of our being. In this case there is only one 
"motive" to ace, and it must prevail, no matter what the choice 
of means. That is to say, a man cannot evade his ultimate 
choice and volition. This way of describing his condition is 
identical with the terms of necessitarianism. 

If this view of the case were not the true one, and we could 
speak strictly of a conflict of desires,, the argument already pre- 
sented would have to be repeated. But accepting the conception 



210 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

as the true one, it would seem that deliberation does not affect 
desire or the true motive, and that it can be only about ideas of 
ends which have no " motive " efficiency. Nevertheless freedom- 
ism has two resources of escape which it will be interesting to 
examine. 

First, the theory of freedom does not require that a man be 
able to choose for himself the ultimate end which his nature pre- 
scribes, but only that he be able to choose whether he shall real- 
ize it or not, and to choose between the objects presented as pos- 
sible means to that end. That he does deliberate regarding those 
and that he does choose between them is a fact which can hardly 
be denied. Certainly they have no immediate effect upon volition 
when presented, as the law of causation would require, and since 
there is complete indifference toward them during deliberation 
the subject must first determine their value and relation to the ul- 
timate end of desire before they can be supposed to have any power 
at all ; and this supposed power is derived wholly from the desire 
within whose scope they happen to fall. But it requires a choice 
of mind to decide this fact, which is an act of will prior to the one 
supposed to follow the desire whose realization is suspended for the 
time. Not to urge this view too persistently, however, it is only 
necessary to observe that the capacity to choose among possible 
means to an end not chosen by the will is all that is absolutely 
necessary for freedom, because this is all that it may mean, and 
probably every one admits that such a choice is possible, while 
puzzled with the fact that a man finds the ultimate end of his 
life fixed for him by his nature and that it must represent a sin. 
gle desire. 

The second argument is quite as effective. It is that a desire 
is not a " motive " when it expresses the passive or probable ten- 
dency of the subject's nature, but only when it is actively present 
in consciousness. That is to say, that man desires food means 
either that his nature is such as to need it at the proper time, or 
that there is a specific craving for it present in consciousness ; for 
instance, a condition of positive hunger. In the former sense it 
can be neither a motive nor a cause of volition. That all will 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 211 

admit. Hence, only in the latter sense can desire ever be a 
" motive," or be supposed to cause a volition. Now, assuming 
that tbe ideational aspect of the motive or desire can have no 
efficiency for the purpose, we are left to the emotional aspect for 
this desideration, and the only question that remains is whether 
it has such efficiency or not, and whether inhibition and delib- 
erative influence it or not. Here Ave return to the same argu- 
ment as before. If desire have, per se, motive efficiency it must 
produce volition immediately. The nexus must be direct be- 
tween it and its effect while it is active. But this is not always 
the case, and may very seldom be the case. An active desire is 
often suspended for various reasons. But it matters not what 
the reasons are, it does not have immediate causal efficiency when 
present, but is wholly subject to the conclusion of deliberation. This 
is only to say that deliberation applies as much to desire as it 
does to ideas, and along with its arrest of the assumed efficiency 
of desire when present, only proves that under any conception of 
it, we cannot suppose that desire is the real cause of the volition 
or the choice. The necessitarian relies upon the involuntary and 
necessary occurrence of the desire as a mere expression of the 
subject's nature prior to any possible freedom, and then its causal 
efficiency when it arises. But arrest and deliberation destroy 
all such supposed agency or indicate that it is not present, and 
simply prove that mental phenomena, whether they are ideas or 
desires, are not the real or true causes of volition. Certainly, if 
the desire is not, which is the only event suspected of being the 
cause, we are left to consider the subject as actually engaged in 
deliberate choice between alternatives, either between various 
means to an end or between the realization and non-realization 
of a given end. In both cases we have velleity or the capacity 
of alternative choice. The case is much stronger if we suppose 
that more than one desire be possible at the same time, because 
the fact would show either that a desire per se has no causal 
efficiency or that the prevalence of the stronger would contra- 
dict the fact of deliberation, or that no volition would occur at 
all, as the argument before has gone to show. But the fact of 



212 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

both volition and deliberation leaves us with the same conclusion 
as in the first case, that mere mental events are never the cause 
of choice and volition. 

The importance of the fact of deliberation, therefore, comes 
from its furnishing evidence to much the same relation between 
desire or motives and volition as that which objective determinism 
would suppose exists between stimulus and volition. The reason 
that man is not the victim of objective influences is that he is the 
spectator of them. They can determine nothing except through 
the consciousness of the subject which has originating power, as 
is universally admitted, the only thing denied being the suppo- 
sition of alternative choice. But man is also a spectator of his 
own states. This involves self-consciousness, or self-reflection, 
and in a measure makes the events of the mind objective to 
him, not external to the subject, as environment must be, but 
under the same control and limitations that we find in external 
influences. This, of course, is testimony to the fact and impor- 
tance of both inhibition and deliberation, and from them we 
have the conclusion already enunciated. We may turn next to 
the third argument. 

3. Consciousness. — The consciousness of freedom has quite 
universally been the argument which seems to carry the most 
weight with the laymen's mind, and philosophers of the free- 
domist school have given it perhaps the most important place 
among the various proofs advanced for freedom. So strong has 
it seemed, or so convincing at least to those who were biassed in 
favor of freedom, that the necessitarian has felt obliged to 
weaken or refute it in some way. It seems the clearest of all 
appeals that can be made, and where there is no misunderstand- 
ing about the terms of the case, it is probably a universal feeling, 
or nearly so universal as to make all other cases abnormal ex- 
ceptions to be accounted for as such. But in order to avoid 
any possible confusion which might be incident to different 
conceptions of freedom as we have defined it, we must explain 
that by the consciousness of freedom we do not mean either that 
the agent is either always or ever conscious of it in all its senses, 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 213 

or that he is conscious that he is free every time he makes a 
choice. But we mean merely that if he interrogates himself at 
the moment of choice, or is asked to state what his power is at 
that time, he would uniformly express consciousness of ability to 
have chosen the rejected alternative. This fact implies freedom. 
Consciousness of freedom, then, does not mean that we are 
always thinking of that freedom, but that, when asked about 
our ability to .choose, we assert our consciousness of a condition 
that implies freedom ; and that condition is the ability to choose 
otherwise than we have done, or to choose equally between 
alternatives. This fact, if it be true and unimpeachable, is 
everywhere admitted to prove a man's freedom. 

Mr. Sidgwick, after admitting " the formidable array of 
cumulative evidence offered for determinism," asserts that " there 
is but one opposing argument of real force, namely, the imme- 
diate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate 
action." But after this statement Mr. Sidgwick admits that this 
consciousness " may be illusory." This is the objection always 
raised by the necessitarian. Mr. Balfour, again, admits the 
universality and even the necessity of this belief in the ability 
to elect between alternatives, but then asserts that it is an illu- 
sion. Here is his language : " In fact, no doubt remains that 
every individual while balancing between two courses is under 
the inevitable impression that he is at liberty to pursue either, 
and that it depends upon ' himself and himself alone — ' himself 
as distinguished from his character, his desires, his surroundings, 
and his antecedents — which of the offered alternatives he will 
elect to pursue. I do not know that any explanation has been 
proposed of this singular illusion." Mr. Balfour then goes on 
to explain it in the following way : " I venture with some dif- 
fidence to suggest as a theory provisionally adequate perhaps for 
scientific purposes, that the phenomenon is due to the same cause 
as so many other beneficent oddities in the organic world, 
namely, to natural selection. To an animal with no self-con- 
sciousuess a sense of freedom would evidently be unnecessary, if 
not, indeed, absolutely unmeaning. But as soon as self-con- 



214 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

sciousness is developed, as soon as man begins to reflect, however 
crudely and imperfectly, upon himself and the world in which 
he lives, deliberation, volition, and the sense of responsibility 
become wheels in the ordinary machinery by which species- 
preserving actions are produced ; and as these psychological 
states would be weakened or neutralized, if they were accom- 
panied by the immediate consciousness that they were as rigidly 
determined by their antecedents as any other effects by any 
other causes, benevolent Nature steps in and by a process of 
selective slaughter makes the consciousness in such circum- 
stances practically impossible." * 

As this argument is a typical one of the necessitarian, it may 
be prudent to give it the most searching examination. It is a 
charge of illusion against the consciousness of freedom and an 
attempt to prove the beneficent character of that illusion. But 
it is astounding that any one making the slightest pretension to 
philosophic intelligence, would resort to the kind of argument 
here used, not to say anything of the deficiency in the sense of 
humor betrayed by it. Had Mr. Balfour contented himself with 
charging the possibility of illusion against consciousness, as the 
skeptic would do, he might have left the burden of proof for its 
validity upon the freedomist. But to attempt to prove the 
charge when he has to accept the testimony of consciousness in 
that proof, shows a great lack of logical acumen, and then to 
prove the beneficence of an illusion is worse still. Now, it may 
be true that consciousness is an illusory guide, but this is noth- 
ing in favor of necessitarianism, as most persons intend it shall 
be, when they attempt to throw discredit upon the testimony 
of consciousness. If it be illusory, argument on either side 
of the question is perfectly futile ; for I have nothing but 
the testimony of consciousness to the cogency of the argu- 
ment for necessitarianism. But if that authority be im- 
peached, I am as much in the dark about that theory as 
I can possibly be about freedomism. We must, therefore, 
charge an illusion against Mr. Balfour, in attaching any 
* International Journal of Ethics, vol. iv., p. 421-422. 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 215 

weight to the argument for necessitarianism after rejecting the 
testimony of consciousness. Again, why be so defective in the 
sense of humor as to impeach the authority of consciousness, 
while treating the purely logical or ratiocinative argument 
against freedom as if it were free from illusion, when the fact is, 
that reasoning is perhaps a hundred-fold more exposed to illu- 
sion than immediate perception ? An argument is exposed to the 
whole category of fallacies, and yet the author does not seem to 
suspect that fact, and as a consequence to see that the cumulative 
argument for determinism is exposed to more weaknesses than 
the consciousness of freedom. This is the second illusion found 
in his view of the matter. But there is another. When he 
talks about man "as distinguished from his character," he is de- 
luded again by the equivocal nature of the term " character." 
No one ever distinguishes himself from his " character " taken as 
his nature, but only as his habits. The latter, we have shown, is 
never a cause, never necessitates volition, but may be changed ; 
the former does not conflict with freedom. Again, the illusion to 
" surroundings " shows that he is introducing the conception of 
liberty or physico-political freedom into the case, which, what- 
ever is said about it, has no relevancy whatever to the question 
about velleity or alternative choice. This is another illusion. 
Then again, why would not the sense of freedon be as beneficent 
for beings that are not self-conscious as for those that are ? It is 
true that it could have no meaning to such beings. But how 
could it have any meaning to. self-conscious beings, when it is 
false and illusory ? Is not the fact that it is an illusion the very 
thing that takes away its meaning ? Still worse is the supposition 
that the illusion has a beneficial influence on life, because, being 
an illusion, this conclusion can only mean that there is not the 
power of alternative choice, so that the sense of freedom cannot 
alter the course of volition. If it were not an illusion, it might 
do so, but the course of a man's conduct is so fixed by his 
nature, according to the supposition that an illusory belief in 
his freedom is only another name for events which have no in- 
fluence upon choice. Moreover, what becomes of the illusion 



216 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

and its beneficence when its nature is discovered? It is no 
longer an illusion to the man who . discovers the fact. On the 
contrary, Nature has played a trick upon him in making him 
believe he is free, and then robbed the belief of its supposed 
beneficence by the philosophic revelation of its illusory char- 
acter. Still again, what sort of beneficence can any man attrib- 
ute to what is false ? Would Mr. Balfour encourage the belief 
in the philosophy of any man because he believed it beneficent 
though false? And yet his ethics would require him to pre- 
serve the beneficent as opposed to the maleficent at all hazard, 
especially as Nature, according to his own view, has valued 
falsehood more highly than the truth. To illustrate again, if a 
man's nature inevitably inclined him to the wrong, how much 
could his belief, that he was able to do the right, affect his con- 
duct? By supposition only the bad is possible in the case, so 
that a belief to the contrary is not only false, illusory, and in- 
effective, but it is not beneficent. To assert the beneficence of 
an illusion is the last resort of a desperate case, to say nothing 
of the ridiculous plight in which Nature is placed by the per- 
petual liability of having her purposes foiled by man's discovery 
of her illusions. The strangest thing of all, however, is to find 
men so confident that so universal, persistent, and firm a feeling 
as the consciousness of freedom should be probably illusory, 
while there is not the slightest suspicion of either the opinion or 
the argument asserting that illusion. One would think that 
men acquainted with the pitfalls of logic and with the liability 
of individual opinion to errors of conception and judgment 
would exhibit a little more modesty and humility in attacking a 
conviction which they practically admit cannot be dislodged, 
and would rather suspect that thorough scientific patience and 
analysis would discover a truth in it and illusion in the reason- 
ing that seeks to impeach so firm a conviction. 

We admit frankly, however, that the argument from the con- 
sciousness of freedom has its weakness ; but it is not the fact that 
it may be illusory. Such a supposition, as already remarked, 
simply puts a stop to all discussion on one side or the other. 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 217 

The real weakness of the appeal to consciousness is that it can 
never have more than a subjective or individual value. It could 
not prove anything except for the individual who has it, and 
others might not possess any such a power. Nor with the com- 
plex elements entering into the idea of freedom and the evidence 
for it could any except the persons professing consciousness of it 
be absolutely assured as to what the consciousness contained. We 
could only say, that if it be the same for all persons, or for the 
majority, or even for any number of mankind, it will have its 
value determined by its extent, but not beyond the number hav- 
ing it. But I do not think that its testimony can be either 
proved or impeached. It is itself the last court of resort for 
such truths as we actually believe, and it proves too much to 
discredit it and then accept other beliefs which it attests. I 
should prefer to accept it where it honestly attests its deliverances 
and where we have reason to believe that it is normal and 
healthy. If abnormal or unhealthy we simply know nothing 
about it one way or the other, for we cannot tell its contents. 
Its value even in normal cases depends upon the assumption that 
the consciousness of others is like our own where we feel forced 
to accept its testimony or give up all convictions whatever. It 
is, perhaps, the weakness of that assumption that impairs its 
objective testimony but not its subjective value. Moreover, in 
regard to it objectively it might not exist at all in some individ- 
uals, and it is even conceivable that consciousness might in some 
cases assert that the agent was not able to do otherwise than he 
did. That is, the person might be conscious of actions which he 
did not originate. These, of course, are what are called autom- 
atisms, such as twitching, automatic writing, and involuntary 
movements generally; which are not volitions at all. I would 
also admit the conceivability of volitions, of which consciousness 
might attest the impossibility of alternative choice. But this 
fact would not impeach the consciousness of any one else to the 
contrary regarding himself. It could not extend its value 
beyond the person having it, and if I had reason to believe that 
such a consciousness were sufficiently normal I should accept it, 



218 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

while I would accept the contrary testimony of any other normal 
consciousness. This, of course, unfits the appeal to consciousness 
for objective proof, which, after all, is the one thing needed. But 
where it has been the invariable and, as Mr. Balfour says, the 
"inevitable" belief of all men in all ages, circumstances, and 
condition of development, its testimony cannot be set aside until 
the logical argument can be purified of all possibility and sus- 
picion of fallacy. We turn next to an argument that has 
objective weight. 

4. The Sense of Duty. — This is the famous argument of 
Kant for the fact of freedom. It has objective value because 
whoever admits that it exists in any person will find that he 
must choose between making the idea of duty useless or invalid 
and admitting the fact of freedom. Now, it is everywhere ad- 
mitted that the sense of duty, " the categorical imperative/' is a 
very widespread phenomenon, as general as rational beings in 
the wider import of that term. What it implies when it exists 
or can be appreciated at all is that the act enjoined by it is a 
possible one and yet might not be performed. If all men did 
what is right there would be no need of such an imperative. 
But there are constant deviations from the path of virtue, and 
where temptation may lead the agent aside the sense of duty 
comes in to command the pursuit of the ideal and assumes that 
the agent can obey. But if he cannot do so, this feeling is 
powerless to effect anything. If the will be inevitably set in 
any direction, it is impossible for the opposite alternative to be 
chosen, according to necessitarianism, and the sense of duty with 
the implied ability of alternative choice is an illusion, and it 
would seem a rather maleficent one at that, judging from the 
amount of pleasure of which it is supposed to cause the sacrifice. 
Moreover, an obligation to do the impossible is one of the 
absurdest suppositions ever entertained by a person professing 
to be rational. If the sense of duty were assumed to coincide 
always with the direction of the will we might sustain the thesis 
of necessitarianism. But such a conception equally proves its 
uselessness, because the individual's nature is sufficient to 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 219 

accomplish the result by supposition without the presence of 
such a phenomenon. It would simply be a fifth wheel to the 
coach and more likely a useless incumbrance than an aid. 
Moreover, we know as a fact that it more often opposes natural 
inclination instead of coinciding with it, and in fact mental 
economy seems to have intended it to perform this very func- 
tion, whatever else it may be supposed to do, and if the course 
opposed to natural inclination be impossible, as necessitarianism 
must assert, the sense of duty is quite as useless again as in the 
first case, as being unable to determine the will in a direction 
opposed to what it must go. The only possible resource left to 
the necessitarian is to deny the validity of obligation and to 
declare it an illusion, the ultima Thule of every man who finds 
himself cornered by logic and fact. The better way, however, 
is to frankly admit the validity and influence of the sense of 
duty and to accept what it implies, because the consequence of 
denying it is such a redudio ad absurdum of necessitarianism as 
to astonish rational men that the theory could ever have been 
proposed. By asserting necessitarianism we are obliged to 
assert the illusory character of consciousness and the sense of 
duty. By admitting freedom ©f some kind no such arduous 
task is imposed upon us, but the various facts of our rational 
nature are completely reconciled. 

V. CONCLUSION.— In concluding the discussion of free-will it 
is most important to remark that the object of sustaining it has 
been to furnish a basis for our practical attitude of mind and 
conduct toward men. If the doctrine of freedom be declared an 
illusion our business is to eliminate it, its vocabulary, and all its 
implications from the provinces of philosophy and practical 
life. It has no business there unless it be true, or at least con- 
tains important elements of truth. On the other hand, if we 
adopted the position of the necessitarian without qualification we 
should find ourselves much embarrassed for a reason for certain 
institutions which we still insist upon maintaining, namely, pun- 
ishment and the -distribution of praise and blame. If in deny- 
ing a man's freedom we mean to say that he is not the cause of 



220 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

his own actions it is perfectly absurd to use any measures 
against him to prevent his conduct, because they could not be 
effective and because every method of removing an effect must 
divert or remove the cause. If, then, man is the cause of his own 
volitions, there is some need for the idea of freedom, if ouly in 
the sense of spontaneity, in order to determine and to justify our 
treatment of him. The fact is that there is territory for both 
doctrines regarding action. Many actions in the world — physical, 
reflex, automatic, and perhaps some others — are undoubtedly 
necessitated, beyond all possibility of being free in any sense, as 
not being caused by the subject in which they occur. But 
when the subject is a cause of action we require a theoretical 
position, not only to account for them, but also to serve as a basis 
for institutions and habits conditioned by it. Hence I contend 
that there must be room for freedom of some kind, if corrective 
discipline is to be rational at all. If a man can act only in one 
w T ay, according to a fixed character, it is useless to try to make 
him act in any other way. To do so assumes that his nature is 
not fixed beyond modification by his own capacity of adjustment. 
There is no use to reply that a change of environment creates a new 
motive, because by supposition the agent is not capable of 
any other motive, his character and tendency being fixed or 
inflexible. A being who is capable of having more than one 
kind of motive is not only intelligent, but must have the power 
to. decide between this and the natural one. Otherwise what- 
ever adjustment he shows must be merely passive. "With this 
passive adjustment given, of course, nothing can be said or done, 
because it w T ould be necessitated. But man's conscious adjust- 
ment to environment is a different thing. Had he no power 
to act in any but a fixed way, as determined by his ancestry, or 
by a nature of only one impulse, he could not adjust himself even 
if he could feel a new motive. The capacity of conscious adjust- 
ment admitted by all thinkers practically is freedom of the 
highest type, and it is astonishing that men admitting it cannot 
get away from the illusions about the necessity of action accord- 
ing to character and its supposed opposition to the idea of freedom. 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 221 

Take a practical illustration. We usually say that self-pres- 
ervation is instinctive, and probably it is. No doubt the largest 
number of our ordinary actions have reference to the continu- 
ance and protection of our lives. We seem to have a perfectly 
uniform and fixed tendency to maintain life as long as it is pos- 
sible for us to do so. But shall we say that our nature or char- 
acter is so absolutely fixed that we cannot take our own lives ? 
Yet this must be the consequence of any necessity for preserving 
them. But it would be replied that at the moment of suicide 
the agent could no more help committiug that act than he could 
preserving his life before. Both are equally necessitated. But 
what becomes of the idea of the subject's nature or character in 
the case ? By supposition his character predestines or prede- 
termines him to preserve life and he cannot destroy it. On the 
other hand, if suicide attests what his character is, why did it 
not necessitate the act of self-destruction before? Are we to 
suppose two opposite characters in the same subject existing side 
by side and one of them wholly ineffective until a certain 
moment ? But if character can be ineffective for so long a time, 
as is usually the case with suicides, why attribute necessary 
causation to it at all ? In fact such an illustration only proves 
the absurdity of arguing about the question in terms of " char- 
acter" until we have determined what we mean by it, and after 
pointing out the equivocation in it, as we have done, we should 
perceive that it is no longer serviceable for clear thinking in a 
problem like free will. Moreover, the case also shows that we 
are obliged to make room for freedom in some sense in order to 
prevent our minds from becoming entangled in a mass of ab- 
surdities ; and this is all . that needs to be effected, though it is a 
fact that the idea performs other services at the same time. 

But it is not necessary, in sustaining a doctrine of freedom, to 
hold either that all men are free, or that, if free, they are all 
equally free, or even that the same man is equally free at all 
times in regard to all actions connected with his will. For we 
may be confronted with the doubtful cases involved in insanity 
and those of imperfect development. So far as the theory and 



222 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

conception of freedom are concerned, there may be many indi- 
vidual exceptions to it without interfering with it as a principle 
for sane and rational beings. The first object is to show the 
conditions and nature of freedom. It is another thing to show 
how many possess it. As defined it is possible over a very wide 
range of conscious life. The conception of it is not even limited 
to man, and it may be a question whether it is to be excluded 
wherever consciousness is found. But in thus admitting the 
possibility of its very wide prevalence we must not confuse it 
with responsibility, which we have still to define and discuss. 
We must keep distinctly in mind the conception to which free- 
dom is limited, in so far as it is of practical importance to 
Ethics, and that is the capacity for alternative choice. In this 
capacity we do not necessarily include either the tendency or 
the habit of deliberation. For freedom may exist without de- 
liberation, though we may lack the desired evidence for it. 
Hence it is not the tendency to think of alternatives and 
hesitate about them that constitutes freedom, but the con- 
sciousness that there are alternatives and the capacity for choice. 
Nor is it indifference to one or the other of the various courses 
offered to the will. There may be as many of these as possible, 
and the inclination for a particular one may be as decided as we 
like, if only in the consciousness of another and the feeling of duty 
toward it we find the capacity to choose it. Velleity, thus, is 
not mere equilibrium mechanically or morally conceived, which 
is the notion often entertained, but it is the capacity for active or 
voluntary adjustment to environment. This exists without a 
doubt to all who take care to analyze the problem correctly. 
But it could not be a fact if man were the mere puppet of that 
influence, or if his nature were so inflexible that he had capacity 
for only one kind and direction of his conduct. Once admit the 
capacity for conscious adjustment to a changing environment, 
which we described as a quality of rational beings, and the 
whole case, of freedom is proved. It may not be so with respon- 
sibility, but that we have still to consider. We have, however, 
to establish its first and indispensable condition, which is the 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 223 

possibility of choice or of alternative choice, and if the facts pro- 
duced do not prove it as defined, it will have to remain un- 
solved until better arguments can be produced. But if the case 
is made out in its favor, we have a basis for responsibility and 
punishment as applied in the course of history, and that is a 
very important desideratum in the theory of Ethics. The 
extent of this importance will be seen when we take up those 
problems which are now to follow. 

References. — Aristotle : Nichomachean Ethics, Book III. ; Calderwood : 
Handbook of Moral Philosophy, Part III., pp. 170-205 (Fourteenth 
Edition) ; Mackenzie : Manual of Ethics, Chap. VIII. ; Alexander : Moral 
Order and Progress, Book III., Chap. III., Sec. II., pp. 336-341 ; Martineau : 
Study of Religion, Vol. II., Book III., Chap. II. ; Murray : Introduction 
to Ethics, Chap. III. ; Dewey : Outlines of Ethics, Chap. III., pp. 158-166 ; 
Carpenter : Mental Physiology (Preface to the Fourth Edition) ; Hazard 
(Rowland G.) : Freedom in Mind and Willing, and Causation and Free- 
dom in Willing ; Sidgwick : Methods of Ethics, Book I., Chap. V. ; Fowl- 
er and Wilson : Principles of Morals, Vol. II., Chap. IX. ; J. S. Mill : 
Logic, Book VI., Chap. II. ; Hume : Treatise of the Passions, Part III., 
Sees. I.- II. ; Bowne : Principles of Ethics, Chap. VI. ; Sully : The Human 
Mind, Vol. II., Chaps. XVII.-XVIIL, especially pp. 292-295 ; Huxley : 
Essays, Methods, and Eesults, pp. 199-251; Spencer: Principles of 
Psychology, Vol. I., Part IV., Chap. IX., pp. 495-506 ; Philosophic Re- 
view, Vol. III., pp. 1-13, 278-288, 385-411; Psychological Review, 
Vol. L, pp. 217-229; T. H. Green: Prolegomena to Ethics, Book I., 
Chap. III., and Book II., Chap. I. ; Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, 
Chap. VII., pp. 278-293 ; see same author, An Agnostic's Apology, 
pp. 18-25. 



CHAPTER V. 

RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT. 

I. INTRODUCTION. — Freedom, Responsibility, and Punish- 
ment are questions that go together in Ethics, and the first con- 
ditions the second, and the second the third, and all of them 
are very complex conceptions. We have found how complex 
that of freedom is, and responsibility is much more complicated, 
though usually identified with freedom. Punishment, strictly 
considered as a process or defined as a mode of inflicting pain, 
seems very simple. But in its object and methods it appears 
quite complex and is determined accordingly by various condi- 
tions. The important general principle to be kept in mind here, 
however, is that both responsibility and punishment must go 
overboard if freedom in some sense is not true, while the inno- 
vation which we shall introduce into the doctrine is that an 
additional element must be added to freedom in order to create 
responsibility in its full extent, or in the sense in which Ethics 
usually employs the term. This is to say, that freedom may 
exist and yet responsibility not be realized at all, though the 
converse is not true. Let us examine the question. 

II. RESPONSIBILITY. — We have remarked that freedom 
and responsibility are very often confused with each other, and 
that the controversy centering about the former properly per- 
tains to the latter. Moreover, k is much more complex than 
the notion of freedom and is conditioned by every form of it. 
That is to say, a man's responsibility is very much affected by 
the influence of environment, confirmed habits, hereditary incli- 
nations, and the peculiarities of character, while his freedom as 
capacity for adjustment may not be. We shall be told, then, 

224 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 225 

* 
that the long argument for freedom has very little importance, 

if the claim of the necessitarian against freedom be admitted to 
apply against responsibility. It will be said that this is only 
admitting the case under another name, that after all, what the 
necessitarian meant is true. If responsibility is to be subjected 
to all sorts of limitations from both internal and external influ- 
ences, and if it is admitted to be absent in cases where there is 
perfect freedom, it will be said we have not proved w T hat we seem 
to have proved, and that the necessitarian has the right concep- 
tion of the problem in spite of his language and of the arguments 
we have directed against him. 

This, we grant, would be a fair w T ay of putting the matter as 
long as our analysis remains incomplete. But when we have 
shown what enters into responsibility as usually understood, 
and what freedom without responsibility conditions in existing 
social and moral institutions, which would be w T holly unjustifiable 
without freedom, the force of that criticism will be entirely 
lost. What we complain of is, that philosophers have confused 
two wholly distinct things, one conditioning the other, by iden- 
tifying them ; and then by denying one have denied the other 
by implication, responsibility implies freedom of some kind, 
and in its proper form contains much more at the same time. 
But many of the arguments employed against freedom have no 
relevancy whatever to any question of the capacity of alternative 
choice, but only to responsibility, and in showing man's limita- 
tions in regard to responsibility, while assuming it to be the same 
as freedom, the necessitarian cuts away the foundations of institu- 
tions which neither he nor the freedomist will surrender. Hence, 
so far from admitting in effect the claim of the necessitarian the 
position here defended only makes it possible to be consistent in 
theory and practice, while it points out a new and humane conse- 
quence involved in the partial truth represented by necessitarian- 
ism and w T hich its advocates seem not to have suspected. This 
is because they have not analyzed their problem. The impor- 
tance of this will appear in the proper place. We must before 
discussing its practical meaning further define and analyze the 



226 ELEMENTS OF*ETHICS 

< 

conception, remembering, however, that we shall have a direct 
reference to the methods of Punishment. 

1st. Definition of Responsibility. — The conception is too com- 
plex to be stated adequately in brief terms. But it will be helpful 
to indicate that its primary element is imputability ; indeed this 
term is often taken as identical with it. Etymologically re- 
sponsibility means a reply to a charge. In ancient law courts 
the accused had to answer to the charge made against him, 
and this was called his "responsibility." But the idea w T as 
transferred to him as the guilty party and came to denote 
that he had not only to "answer for," but also "to account 
for," the crime, which meant that he should pay the fine or 
penalty. The crime was imputed to him as its cause. From 
the imputation of crime, the term finally came to denote in 
Ethics the imputation of any act, good or bad, to the indi- 
vidual, and so denoted causal capacity, with the possibility of 
alternative choice. From this it passed to the idea that the 
agent was morally praiseworthy or blameworthy in his voluntary 
acts, a conception wholly distinct from freedom, but conditioned 
by it. But as the term has several loose significations the 
broadest meaning which we can give covering all of them is 
immutability, or the reference of certain qualities to the agent 
which make him liable to the consequences of his actions. But the 
dfetinct senses in which this is true, and the limitations under 
which it can be practically applied, must be determined before 
defining it more fully. We often use the term responsibility in 
a metaphorical sense, and often as identical with freedom, when 
in fact it is simple imputability which we have in mind. We 
must, therefore, examine the three forms of imputability as the 
generic idea of freedom and responsibility. 

2d. Forms of Imputability. — There are three forms of this 
conception in the common usage of language, though the term 
which does duty for them is responsibility, which we wish here 
to give its proper definite meaning distinct from freedom. The 
three forms of imputability which are to be separately dis- 
cussed are causal, elective, and moral imputability. The last is 






RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 227 

synonymous with responsibility. Let us take up each one in 
its order. 

1. Causal Imputability. — This is nothing but the refer- 
ence of an act to its cause, and in the application of the term 
responsibility to describe it, as is done at times, there is nothing 
but a metaphorical sense given to it. Thus we say " the weather 
is responsible for the floods," or "the moonlight is responsible for 
much sentimental poetry," or " Bruin is responsible for his good 
behavior," etc. But probably very little confusion in Ethics is 
occasioned by an application so distinct from the proper sense of 
responsibility. Such a use does not distinguish at all between 
necessary and free causes. It applies equally to physical 
events and to spontaneous actions, like automatic, instinctive, and 
possibly impulsive movements. But rejecting the application 
of responsibility to the subjects of such actions does not re- 
move the value of using the phrase causal imputability ; for 
this expression means to imply a certain method of dealing with 
such causes or agents in the economy of social order. The 
organization of society requires that certain events and actions 
be prevented, if possible, and this can be effected only by treat- 
ing their causes. If we can remove the causes we reasonably 
expect to get rid of the effects. In the application of methods to 
this end there is no consideration of rights or duties — that is, there 
are no limitations to our choice of methods — until we come to 
sentient beings, where we are supposed to treat, at least the 
higher and more harmless order of them, with due respect and 
compassion. If they can be said to have any rights at all, we 
have to treat them accordingly ; and the same can be said of ir- 
rational members of the human race, such as the insane, 
imbeciles, etc. Throwing out physical causes as not involving 
any limitations of method whatever, causal imputability, as 
representing spontaneity in the agent, will determine its own 
method of treating such agents, of permitting their liberty when 
their spontaneous actions do. not conflict with social welfare, and 
of preventing them when they do so conflict. There is, there- 
fore, an important place for the idea of causal imputability 



228 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

in ethical doctrine, since it enables us to use the freedom of spon- 
taneity for the justification of a certain policy toward individuals 
having it and having nothing else. 

2. Elective Imputability. — This is the imputation of 
actions to beings who possess elective choice or velleity. It is 
identical with freedom as w T e have defended it in the course of 
our discussion, and it probably exists to some extent wherever 
consciousness is found, and certainly in its full extent wherever 
reflective or deliberative consciousness exists. Here again the 
term responsibility is purely metaphorical in its application to 
the case, because this form of imputability does not necessarily 
require a moral nature to. be present. The capacity for alter- 
native choice is all that is necessary for it. This will cover all 
the voluntary actions of at least the higher order of animal ex- 
istence, and such of the insane and imbecile as can reasonably 
be supposed to have retained their elective power over alterna- 
tives. This condition will determine distinct methods of treat- 
ing such agents in the social economy, as compared with those 
who possess nothing but spontaneity. Freedom, as we have de- 
fined it, is possessed in the full measure by agents to whom 
elective imputability is applicable, because they are the same 
thing in different relations, freedom or velleity being looked at 
as a capacity of the subject and elective imputability as a 
liability to certain consequences for his conduct. No punish- 
ment, strictly speaking, can be applied to such agents, nor re- 
wards of an opposite kind. They are amenable only to such 
methods as will either do nothing but prevent their conflict 
with social order, or will both prevent it and modify conduct so 
that the agent can have his liberty. But there is no attribution 
of praise or blame to such agents, for they require more than 
mere freedom to be moral. That is an indispensable condition, 
but it is not the only one. 

3. Moral Imputability, or Kesponsibility. — This is a 
much more complex conception than the others and must be 
considered very fully, because we wish to distinguish it quite 
radically from freedom, with which it is too often confused. 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 229 

To define it, therefore, we have : Responsibility is that form of 
imputabilitij which involves the existence of conscience and free- 
dom. Conscience is here taken as equivalent to a moral nature, 
or the capacity for distinguishing between right and wrong, and 
of feeling a sense of obligation. Freedom also is taken in every 
sense of the term, including liberty, spontaneity, and velleity. 
The difference between responsibility and freedom, as defended 
above, is apparent from this definition, and it explains why we 
regarded the freedom of velleity as conditioning responsibility 
and yet as possibly existing without it. The importance of the 
distinction will appear when w T e come to consider the methods 
of punishment. We must first examine the nature, conditions, 
and limitations of responsibility as it has been defined. 

3d. Nature and Conditions of Responsibility. — The nature 
of responsibility is stated generally in the definition of it. 
What we are to remember and make clear before entering into 
its conditions is the manner in which it is to be distinguished 
from freedom as the capacity of elective choice. This is simply 
the capacity of voluntary adjustment to environment and may 
not be more, though it includes the power to elect independently 
of external influences. But responsibility is the capacity for 
electing both freely and righteously. The former may exist 
perfectly in non-moral and irrational beings, taking the latter to 
include the insane, imbecile, and certain classes of criminals, 
while the latter can exist only in moral agents. The constitu- 
tion and conditions of moral agency or responsibility, therefore, 
will appear in the following important data. 

1. Psychological Freedom. — This means that the agent 
must have both spontaneity and velleity ; that is, be the cause of 
his volitions and capable of alternative election. A man who is 
not the cause of his actions is certainly not one to whom we 
could impute them, though he would not yet be properly respon- 
sible if we could say nothing more than that he is the cause of them. 
An illustration is found in instinctive, automatic, and probably 
certain forms of insane actions. The agent is not regarded as 
responsible in such cases because the element of rationality is 



230 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

excluded from them. Rationality is essential to responsibility, 
whatever else may be included. Again, a man who cannot pos- 
sibly elect a volition other than a fixed one is an automaton, if 
he acts at all, and cannot be responsible, because responsibility 
implies elective capacity at least. No one disputes this, though 
it may contain more. But we certainly exclude it from actions 
not involving that capacity for the reason that we expect such 
a possibility with rational beings. Deny it and whatever else 
the agent may possess he cannot be responsible. 

2. Physico-political Freedom, or Liberty. — This, as 
already defined, is exemption from restraint, and is a very im- 
portant condition of responsibility, because we have pointed out 
that psychological freedom — that is, both spontaneity and velleity 
— may exist in spite of all conceivable restraints. It may not be 
effective in producing any result where compulsion may arrest 
the physical movements of the body. But the choice and voli- 
tion may be executed without regard to restraints. Responsi- 
bility, however, can exist only to the extent to which the sub- 
ject is exempt from restraints determining the conditions under 
which he must act. Hence it is proper to say that liberty is a 
condition of responsibility, but not of spontaneity nor of velleity. 
An illustration will make this clear. The best example will be 
that of the slave. We are accustomed to saying that the slave 
is not a free agent. This is not because he cannot disobey his 
master, or cannot act in any other way than a fixed or pre- 
scribed one, but because his course of action is under restraint, 
is determined for him. The master has laid down the conditions 
under which the slave shall choose with impunity. Hence free- 
dom in this sense means choice with impunity, or non-liability 
for consequences that are voluntarily accepted ; it does not mean 
choice absolutely considered. The slave is placed between what 
he must do and what he must accept as a consequence, not be- 
tween alternatives of his own making. Hence he is not respon- 
sible for the act, the necessity of which has been fixed by his 
superior. The law and common sense have always treated this 
class as exempt from responsibility in all obligations which are 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 231 

not imposed by their own wills, and in all actions which are pre- 
scribed under penalty by the master. Yet they are free in the 
psychological sense, as free as any one else could be who is not 
under a master. It is precisely the same with all agents under 
similar limitations. The officers of the law, for instance, are not 
responsible for their duties or for the acts made necessary to 
fulfill those duties. The law is an expression of other wills than 
their own, and the officer after election to his position, or the 
acceptance of it, has no responsibility for the acts prescribed by 
the law, because he has not himself determined the alternatives 
between which he must choose. If the law be wrong, and the 
officer knows or is capable of knowing that it is wrong, he may 
then be indirectly responsible, where other considerations do not 
interfere, for accepting a position which involves a wrong 
that he can prevent. But if no act or choice of his can prevent 
the fulfillment of the law, and if he be liable to punishment for 
not fulfilling it, he has no responsibility in the case. This rests 
upon the law-makers. But it is not necessary to follow a mat- 
ter of this kind into all its details. The main point to be illus- 
trated is that a man's responsibility for an act depends upon the 
alternatives between which he is placed quite as much as it 
depends upon his capacity of electing between them. This is 
why there must be at least a certain measure of liberty or ex- 
emption from restraint, as well as freedom or velleity, in order 
to secure responsibility, and it does not matter from what source 
the restraint or limitation comes, provided only that it is a 
superior power which subjects the agent to limitations that affect 
his personal welfare, perfection, rights, or other immunities. 
The nature and extent of those limitations will be considered 
presently. For the moment it is enough to know that external 
influences or a restriction of liberty that does not affect the ab- 
stract capacity of elective choice may interfere with responsibility, 
and that, other things being equal, with the possibility of volun- 
tary adjustment to environment, this responsibility will coincide 
with the liberty here indicated, or appear to be identical with it. 
It is this which has given rise to the confusion between freedom 



232 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

psychologically considered and responsibility, and consequently 
the denial of freedom, the moment that responsibility was found to 
be limited by external influences. It grew out of an ordinary 
illusion of identity in regard to two things denoted by the same 
term, and then a fallacy of equivocation in the argument which 
the controversy about free will involved. 

One thing to be remarked under this topic is the relation of 
responsibility to the subject's rights and duties, a relation which 
is not involved in free will, though conditioned by it. We 
assume that a man has the right of self-preservation, of self-real- 
ization and culture within certain limits, and that he has certain 
duties resting upon him. These duties, and therefore the subject's 
responsibilities, are dependent, not only upon the possibility of 
his electing for them, but also upon the possibility of performing 
them when he does elect ; that is, upon his " freedom " from an 
alternative which conditions his welfare in another more impor- 
tant aspect. Thus I may say that it is a man's duty to exercise 
the right of the elective franchise, and he is responsible for not 
so doing. But this is wholly dependent upon its relation to the 
risks of health, life, or property involved, even though he have 
the power to perform in the case. And so with a man's rights. 
If external influences impose an alternative that conflicts with 
the subject's rights, though free to choose or reject this alter- 
native, he is not responsible for it, because he is not responsible 
for or has not determined the conditions under which he must 
choose in the case. This is the most important condition of the 
responsibility, while it has nothing to do with the capacity of 
elective choice. It is not a condition existing in any absolute 
degree, but is subject to indefinable limitations. It is only to say 
that responsibility will exist in the proportion in which man has 
the opportunity to determine the alternatives from which he 
shall choose. If they are determined for him he requires nothing 
more than freedom for adjustment and survival. But if he can 
determine them himself, if he can propose a moral ideal whose 
realization is not excluded by the necessity of consulting lower 
ends for survival, and if his own personality is not at stake in 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 233 

the case, while his freedom, psychologically considered, is not 
affected one way or the other, his responsibility is so affected, 
because it depends more on the power to act independently than 
in spite of environment. Or, to put the same thought in a way 
that shows how freedom and responsibility have been confused, 
we can say that freedom of will depends on capacity for elective 
choice, and responsibility upon the opportunity of action without 
objective limitations. 

3. Conscience or Moral Capacity. — Kesponsibility is a 
characteristic that is not attributed either to the animals or to 
irrational men, such as the insane, the imbecile, and certain 
classes of criminals. The main reason for the fact is that moral 
reason is excluded from these classes. The principal distinctive 
feature of man, compared with animal life, is the fact that he 
has a well-developed moral nature, and it is often supposed that 
there is no connecting link between the two classes because of 
this fact. AVe shall not go so far. as to determine this question, 
as it has no bearing upon the theory of responsibility, but only 
upon its application. The present purpose is gained if we can 
insist upon the enormous distance between the typical species of 
both classes of existence, and note that it is marked by the pres- 
ence in man of what goes by the name of a moral nature. This is 
the chief factor of responsibility because it is determined by the 
matter of praise and blame, or merit and demerit. It involves 
all that is still to be examined more carefully in the study of 
conscience, but which may here be summed up in intelligence, 
moral feeling, and the sense of duty. Conscience is simply the 
mind acting as a determinant of the ideal, of the choice de- 
manded for its realization, and the monitor of the will in its voli- 
tions. Man is responsible in proportion as it is present and 
active in his life. To show this we have only to see how we ad- 
judge the conduct of children, of savages, of the illiterate, of the 
passionate, of the defective classes, in all of which the moral 
faculties either do not exist or are less developed and active in 
their lives. We do not think them less free than mature and well- 
developed species of the race, because their power of choice is the 



234 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

same as those ; but their responsibility differs because it is so 
much more dependent upon the power to determine the values 
of alternatives than upon the power to elect from them. 
Conscience is the power which effects this estimation, and until it 
does this, and imposes an obligation, true moral responsibility 
does not exist. The term can only be used metaphorically to 
describe any other action, no matter how free it may be. Re- 
sponsibility is thus conditioned much more by the range of 
knowledge, as applied to moral distinctions, than upon merely 
conative capacity or elective choice. Freedom requires knowl- 
edge, consciousness ; but it requires only to know what the par- 
ticular alternatives are from which the choice is made, while- 
responsibility requires, in addition, to know the moral quality of 
the alternatives. It is thus the hind of knowledge which effects 
responsibility, and w T e may contrast it with freedom by saying 
that the primary element of freedom is power to do, while that of 
responsibility is morality. This is clearly illustrated by the 
large class of persons who are exempt from praise or blame on 
the ground that they do not know the character of their conduct, 
and who, from the existence of moral and intellectual defects, 
cannot be expected to know it. Even animals may have power 
to elect, but not to distinguish right and wrong. 

Still another way exists to show the distinction between free- 
dom and responsibility. We do not attach praise or blame to 
actions unless the agent is capable of knowing their character. 
He may know what the alternatives of choice are, and have the 
power of choice, but unless he knows or can be made to know 
that one of them is morally preferable to another we do not 
praise or blame him for them. Praise and blame attach only to 
moral agents, and not to those who are nothing more than free 
agents. The former quality involves the existence of conscience, 
and the latter does not, though it is a condition and element of 
the effectiveness of conscience when it does exist. 

It is also important to remark that responsibility exists in dif- 
ferent degrees, according to the degree of development possessed 
by conscience. It is not an absolute quality existing in the 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 235 

same degree in all persons or not at all. It has all varieties of 
degrees according, on the one hand, to the influence of environ- 
ment, and on the other, to the extent of moral development. But 
throwing aside the influence of external agencies, the modifying 
influence of developmeDt is shown in two different ways. First, 
responsibility is absolutely conditioned by the capacity for know- 
ing that there is a right and wrong, and second, its degrees are 
conditioned by the extent of actual knowledge regarding the 
nature of particular actions. There can be no responsibility 
whatever unless the agent can appreciate or be taught to appre- 
ciate what is meant by right and wrong, but it is not completed 
by this merely general distinction. The extent of it depends 
upon the agent's kDowledge of the particular acts that are con- 
nected with the distinction. Hence there are two different forms 
of responsibility which determine degrees of punishment to be 
examined presently. The first requires that the agent have 
the capacity for estimating moral values, and the second that he 
know what actions agree or disagree with them. In other words, 
the first and absolute condition of responsibility is the capacity 
to know a moral end, and the second is actual knowledge of the 
means to it. Thus I require in a child that it be able to know 
that cruelty is wrong, that it is a bad' end to pursue, before I 
can think of holding it responsible for such an act. On the 
other hand, even if it knows that cruelty is condemnabie it is 
not responsible for that result if it does not know that given 
actions terminate in it. This is the distinction between the 
intention as applied to ends and intention as applied to acts. 
It everywhere holds good, and is reckoned with both in courts of 
law and the judgments of practical life. Exemption can be pur- 
chased only by proving ignorance either of moral distinctions or 
of the character of the acts involving them. To summarize the 
conditions of the two different degrees of responsibility, the first 
depends upon the capacity for moral knowledge and the second 
upon the extent of it. 

4. Rational Equilibrium and Supremacy. — By this con- 
dition of responsibility I mean subjective control corresponding 



236 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

to objective freedom or liberty. t The less perfectly developed 
species of men undoubtedly are influenced by passion, instinct, or 
hereditary evil inclinations to an extent that may well handicap 
them in a struggle requiring a strong moral nature to survive 
in it. They may be able to choose, to resist these forces, and 
actually may elect for the wrong, conscious that the opposite 
course is the one enjoined by the social organism. But the 
better elements of reason and moral inclination may be kept 
down so that neither prudence nor conscience operate effectively, 
and in all such cases humane minds act indulgently in the 
distribution of praise and blame or responsibility. Where the 
organic nature of the subject, whether physical or mental, keeps 
up before consciousness a craving desire for some object without 
interference of the subject's will, there is a force that may pro- 
duce an act that we regard as wrong and yet we shall have to 
limit the agent's responsibility, mainly because the act may not 
be a deliberate choice or volition at all, but a mere automatism, or 
it may be a mixture of both. Organic cravings for which the 
agent is not responsible, with their predisposition to check de- 
liberation, do much to determine the alternatives between which 
the agent has to choose before he has time to reflect on their 
character, and though he is perfectly free he will be responsible 
only to the extent in which reason and conscience enter into the 
determination of the choice. If impulse, passion, instinct, and 
hereditary inclinations act dynamically alone, there will be no 
responsibility and also no freedom but that of spontaneity. But 
if they are accompanied by consciousness, they will be free 
in proportion to its influence on the result, and responsible 
in proportion to the activity of conscience and its power to effect 
an equilibrium against natural appetites. It is here again that 
freedom and responsibility have been confused, and the former 
conceived as indifference to motives. Now, responsibility does 
require somethiug like indifference, balance, or equilibrium. 
But it is not indifference to motives, but to organic tendencies, 
which act as restraints upon deliberation much as objective 
restraints limit the opportunities of free choice, as it is called. 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 237 

There can be no indifference to motives in the last analysis, 
for reason must have its own motives ; nor must the indifference 
be freedom from incliuation and emotional desire altogether. It 
must be exemption from their impulsive, reflex, or automatic 
effect upon action. The equilibrium here considered, therefore, 
is not a motiveless consciousness, but a deliberative consciousness, 
which can make the subject's own feelings and natural desires an 
object of restraint and control ivithout a resort to limitations of 
objective freedom or liberty. This is only another way of saying 
that moral perception is more or less a condition of responsi- 
bility, but not of freedom as capacity for elective choice. The 
inhibition of all the reflex, impulsive, and automatic forces of the 
system, whether physical or mental, is necessary to give deliber- 
ative reason^ control of the field, and the balance, indifference, or 
equilibrium of which we speak, is only the subject's exemption 
from the play of mechanical and organic impulses which would 
prevent his actions from being strict volitions, and more par- 
ticularly from being volitions with an accompaniment of moral 
consciousness. Action under the motivation of reason will 
condition freedom ; under the motivation of moral reason or 
conscience it will determine responsibility. 

4th. Limitations of Responsibility. — After what has been said 
of the conditions of responsibility its limitations require to 
be little more than enumerated. They are respectively the 
opposite of its conditions and may be dismissed briefly as 
follows : 

1. The Influence of Environment. — This limitation is not 
due to the mere presence of external agencies, but their power 
to render impossible the realization of anything but self-pres- 
ervation. Thus, where economic conditions involve the expen- 
diture of the subject's whole time and energies in bare self-support 
he is not responsible for the failure to realize any higher good. 
He will be responsible only to the extent to which he is not com- 
pelled to act in self-defense, assuming that he has the right to it, 
and to wmich he can determine as well as choose his end for him- 
self. 



238 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

2. Inherited Impulses. — It is not heredity per se that 
limits responsibility, because even this might be inherited. But 
it is the inheritance of organic tendencies which reflect a defec- 
tive conscience, or which more or less predetermine the alterna- 
tives from which the subject is to choose. We make a man 
responsible for his habits because we assume that he originates 
them and that he is aware of their character. But he is not 
responsible for — that is, neither originated nor knew the nature 
of — the cravings which offer his will an object of volition. To the 
extent, therefore, to which moral balance or the sovereignty of 
reason and conscience are subordinated to irrational instincts, 
the agent will be limited in his responsibility, though not in his 
capacity of choice, under the necessity of adjustment. 

3. Defective Knowledge. — Ignorance, if it can be proved, 
is always a legitimate plea of defense against responsibility. 
The agent may know what is right and wrong in the abstract, 
the ultimate end which he ought to seek and that which he 
should avoid ; but he may not be sufficiently conscious, owing to 
no fault of his own, of the particular conduct which is causally 
connected with that end, and hence not being involved in his 
intentions, the connection cannot be a basis of responsibility in 
the case. 

4. Defective Moral Capacity. — A man may have a 
good intellect and a wide knowledge of facts and of the relation 
between means and ends, but if he lacks the capacity to estimate 
or feel the value and imperativeness of moral ends, if he lacks 
that conjunction of social, intellectual, and moral instincts, so 
called, which determine the value of certain ends to be realized, 
he cannot be regarded as completely responsible. His conduct 
can only be prudential, not moral, and his responsibility will 
extend only so far as his moral nature is developed. 

The only criticism likely against all this will be the charge of 
the necessitarian, that we practically admit his whole argument 
by granting these important limitations to responsibility. This, 
as we have already admitted, appears very fair. But it wholly 
mistakes the issue, while as a matter of fact we do not suppose 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 239 

the limitations as universal as the necessitarian does the absence 
of freedom. "We have merely shown the conditions under which 
responsibility must be limited or absent, and probably the pro- 
portion of mankind wholly without it is very small, while if 
we admit that it may exist, as we think it does, in indefinite 
degrees, there is room for selecting typical instances for illustrat- 
ing and justifying moral and social policy in its manner of deal- 
ing with men. But the issue which the necessitarian mistakes 
is, whether man can choose between two alternatives of which he 
is conscious, while the arguments which he produces against this 
possibility are drawn almost wholly from questions of morality 
and responsibility, which are much more limited than freedom. 
Freedom, as here defined, is as universal as consciousness, at 
least the deliberative consciousness, which is not limited even to 
man ; but responsibility can be found only where we find moral 
capacity. Hence, though we admit limitations to this, we rely 
upon a more universal freedom as the very condition of moraliz- 
ing man by education and discipline, while the necessitarian in 
denying freedom, which he himself defines as capacity for elec- 
tive choice, cuts off every possibility of this result and with it 
the basis of every institution aiming to accomplish it. This is 
apparent in the system of Mr. Spencer. On the one hand, he' 
says that the primary influences which have given rise to moral 
consciousness have been religious, political, and social restraints, 
and on the other, he denies the freedom of the will. But if man 
is not free and cannot choose any other course than that pre- 
scribed by his character, then his character is either not that of 
a free agent or he cannot modify it by any submission to restraint. 
Political, social, and religious restraints can do nothing with a 
man who cannot freely and voluntarily adjust himself to them. 
It is precisely because he is free that we impose restraints and 
inflict punishment upon man in order to moralize him. Other- 
wise we could not expect to modify him or his conduct. Hence 
as a condition of developing moral capacity, or at least moral 
habits in the agent, we must have freedom or velleity, which is 
a more universal quality of intelligence than moral conscious- 



240 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

ness, and with the dawn and growth of moral consciousness will 
come responsibility in its appropriate degree. 

III. PUNISHMENT. — Punishment, again, is a term used in 
more than one sense, and, like freedom and responsibility, re- 
quires to be analyzed. This will be done by considering its 
definition and divisions. 

1st. Definition of Punishment. — Punishment, strictly speak- 
ing, is the infliction of pain for wrongdoing. This, however, does 
not fully state its object, while modern writers Avish to distinguish 
its proper object from that which is too often connected with the 
infliction of pain, namely, vindictiveness. Etymologically the 
term denotes the infliction of pain, and remotely is taken from 
a root which implies that the object of it was to produce peni- 
tence for wrongdoing. It is synonymous with penalty or con- 
sequences imposed upon action to prevent its recurrence. At 
first this penalty or punishment was inflicted with the purpose 
of avenging the wronged party. It was done by the process of 
requital in kind (eye for eye, tooth for tooth), but in course of 
time an equivalent was demanded and received as a substitute, 
and quit money was accepted as adequate compensation for in- 
jury in most cases. The term punishment took on the new 
.meaning and retains it still, though it has not lost the significa- 
tion of the infliction of pain for the sake of satisfying vindictive- 
ness or moral indignation. But it is precisely this mental 
attitude which a high civilization wishes to eliminate from its 
methods of punishment, and hence, though it retains the inflic- 
tion of pain in its policy, it does not inflict it for pain's sake, but 
only as a means to the moralization of the individual, when the 
penalty can be removed. Thus pain is not the object' but an 
incident of its existence. Hence in its broadest sense to denote 
what modern practice and conceptions would have it mean, 
punishment is the imposition of restraints with the infliction of 
pain because of wrongdoing and for the purpose of prevention 
and correction ; rarely, if ever, for retribution. This is a very 
complex conception and comprehends several objects which are 
distinct from each other and depend upon different conditions. 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 241 

But it is noticeable that it aims to eliminate the original, conception 
and object of punishment. We may, therefore, take up the kinds 
and conditions of punishment as comprehensively understood. 

A fundamental feature in determining the conception of 
punishment is the fact that no one applies the term to processes 
attempting to affect the conduct of animals or of imbeciles and 
the insane. Punishment denotes a method of treating free and 
responsible agents. We may inflict pain upon animals and men 
whom we do not regard as rational, but we never mistake this 
for punishment. We inflict it either out of malice or for the 
purpose of preventing certain irregularities of conduct detri- 
mental to human welfare. Often the pain is nothing but a 
necessary incident of our object. But punishment in no case 
expresses either the nature or the object of the process. It 
can properly apply only to moral beings and is an incident of 
responsibility. 

2d. Kinds and Objects of Punishment. — What are called 
the kinds and objects of punishment are expressed in the same 
terms. They cover every means employed by man in his social 
capacity, or in the capacity of exercising legitimate authority, 
to regulate human conduct and to protect the order which he 
endeavors to establish. But they can all be resolved into three 
forms. 

1. Prevention, or Preventive Restraints. — Prevention, 
strictly speaking, is not a form but an object of punishment. 
This was practically made clear by the fact that punishment can 
strictly apply only to free and responsible beings, freedom here 
expressing the capacity of alternative choice. But a policy of 
preventing wrongdoing can apply to beings who are without 
these qualities and yet be an object of the treatment applied to 
those who have them. This matter aside, however, what we 
wish chiefly to remark is the condition of applying even preven- 
tive restraint. It is the fact that even prevention cannot be 
applied to the conduct of beings who are not the cause of their 
own volitions. Necessitarianism of the objective sort, which 
magnifies the determining influence of environment, cannot even 



242 ELEMENTS OE ETHICS 

apply or justify the application of preventive methods to agents 
who do not originate their own acts. Prevention must, to be 
rational, always apply to causes and not to effects. If man's 
conduct be bad, we can prevent its recurrence only by removing 
its cause, and if man does not cause it, he cannot be the subject 
of preventive restraint. The only thing amenable to such a sys- 
tem is the cause of the act, and hence man must at least have 
the freedom of spontaneity before we can morally justify any 
method of imposing restraints or inflicting pain upon him. But 
preventive methods do not go beyond this. They do not stop 
to consider whether the agent is free and responsible in the 
higher sense. They only consider his value in the social and moral 
economy, and subordinate his existence, rights, and liberties to 
that economy. Thus if an insane man commit a murder, we do 
not punish him. We confine him under restraint to prevent 
similar deeds in the future on his part. We do not attempt 
either to reform him or to make his restraint an example to 
others, for the reason that he is not responsible. We may 
attempt to cure him of his disease, but not to correct his will. It 
is the same with animals and all agents that may be considered 
simply as the causes of their actions, and nothing more. We re- 
strict their liberties ; that is, confine them, and aim to do nothing 
but prevent the evils they are capable of producing. But we do 
so only upon the supposition that objective necessitarianism 
is false, and that the agents are free to the extent of sponta- 
neity ; that is, of being the causes of their own actions. This 
is one practical count against the unqualified adoption of necessi- 
tarianism. 

2. Correction, or Corrective Discipline. — Correction, 
like prevention, expresses an object rather than a form of punish- 
ment. It involves the infliction of pain or the imposition of 
restraint for the purpose of modifying the subject's character and 
his restoration to liberty. This is not the object of prevention, 
which cannot change character, or at least never expects to do 
so, for the reason that it is not founded upon that possibility. It 
is perfectly compatible with subjective necessitarianism. But 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 243 

not so with corrective discipline. This is a method which cannot 
be applied to agents who are nothing more than the causes of 
their actions. It assumes that character is not a fixed and unal- 
terable quality, but that it is modifiable by voluntary adjustment 
to circumstances ; that is to say, it assumes that a man can act 
otherwise than he does, or that he can choose between alter- 
natives which, as we have seen, would be impossible under neces- 
sitarianism. Correction, therefore, assumes that a man is a free 
agent, that this freedom goes beyond spontaneity and includes 
velleity. Otherwise the whole system is absurd. A man who 
cannot modify his conduct under discipline, and hence who is 
not free, is not a subject for any kind of punishment : he is fit 
only for a madhouse. He must have the capacity of voluntary 
choice, elective volition, before he is amenable to reproof or cor- 
rection, for the simple reason that a fixed character is not capa- 
ble of change. If the agent be insane he may be cured, but not 
corrected or reformed. Correction depends wholly upon the 
capacity of free adjustment to circumstances. It is no answer to 
say that his environment, external influences, modifies his con- 
duct, because, if this determines it, we have seen that the subject is 
not the cause of his own actions and is not even amenable to pre- 
ventive methods. A being who can consciously adjust himself to 
environment is not the subject of a blind instinct that goes on in 
its momentum and shows no adjustment to change, but has the 
capacity of elective choice as the one condition of correction. 
It is fatal to the method to suppose that the modification of hab- 
its, which every one admits to be a fact in many, perhaps the 
majority of cases, is merely a passive response to external influ- 
ence, because, if it were so, the old character would return to the 
control as soon as restraint was removed. If not permanently 
modified by corrective punishment, the subject would have to be 
permanently confined. But the fact that his character becomes 
modified in many cases sufficiently to restore his liberty is 
proof that it is not unalterable by himself, that the agent's will 
and free choice count for much in the result ; nay, are the pri- 
mary condition of it. 



244 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

The effect of all this is to propose a dilemma for the necessita- 
rian. He must abandon either his 'theory of the will or his 
theory of punishment. It is the necessitarian who has always 
advocated most strenuously the restriction of punishment to the 
purposes of prevention and correction. If he confined himself 
to prevention there would be no quarrel with him. But when 
he admits that punishmeDt is designed to correct and reform the 
will, and that it actually avails to produce this effect, he aban- 
dons the fundamental assumption of his theory of volition, which 
must hold that character is an unalterable datum. Otherwise 
there is absolutely no difference between freedomism and neces- 
sitarianism. But as long as he insists upon the antithesis be- 
tween these two theories of volition he must either abandon his 
own doctrine of it and accept the fact of freedom or confine his 
theory of punishment to prevention. He cannot hold to both of 
them at the same time. 

The relation of corrective punishment to responsibility is a 
complicated one. While moral responsibility is not necessary 
in any degree to the modification of habits, the application of 
this method to man invariably assumes a measure of it and aims 
to increase it. So far as mere change of habits is concerned 
this can be effected more or less wherever there is free choice, 
and is not limited to the human race. But among animals the 
effects of discipline are soon obliterated, if the individual's nat- 
ural condition is restored, and since the value of animals is not 
measured in moral terms, whatever discipline is applied to them 
is designed to mold habits in accordance with economic consid- 
erations. It is only in man and among those of the race of 
whom no suspicion of insanity, intellectual and moral, can be 
entertained, that discipline is applied for the purpose of improv- 
ing personal character and preparing him for the right enjoy- 
ment of social rights and civil liberties. Hence it assumes a 
measure of responsibility, if only of the slightest degree. If the 
man who does a wrong to society can draw the distinction be- 
tween right and wrong at all, he is liable to corrective discipline 
either as a mode of instructing him regarding his specific duties, 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 245 

or as a lesson in the formation of better habits. But lie is re- 
sponsible to the extent of his knowledge in the case. Not that 
ignorance of the law w T ill excuse him before the courts, unless it 
can be proved, but that he is required to prove this ignorance 
and freedom from bad intentions. This limitation aside, how- 
ever, it is a fact that defective knowledge and defective moral 
capacity will exempt a man from full responsibility for his ac- 
tions, so that the measure of his punishment is graduated to this 
fact as well as to the amount of injury inflicted, while it is 
made solely corrective in its object, the design being to develop 
conscience from a passive to an active, from a static to a dynamic, 
function in the economy of the individual's life. Corrective 
punishment respects personality and aims to fit the individual 
for his liberty, and not merely to get satisfaction out of the in- 
fliction of pain. It assumes that conscience and respect for 
duty are either not dominant among the motives of the subject, 
or are defective in their development, and hence it endeavors to 
give them the place which deliberation upon unpleasant conse- 
quences for disregarding them is expected to produce. It makes 
allowance for all the limitations of responsibility which we have 
enumerated and tempers the severity of the punishment accord- 
ingly. It assumes a certain degree of it and the capacity under 
pressure to adjust oneself to environment and to form habits in 
which conscience and respect for public welfare shall predomi- 
nate. It aims also to increase that responsibility by making the 
reasons for its limitation less cogent and by increasing the re- 
spect for law, which is a function of conscience. 

It is important to remark a confirmation of this position in the 
recent doctrine that imprisonment for crime should be for an in- 
definite period, its expiration to be determined by the degree of de- 
velopment in character and self-control. This view abandons the 
notion of compensation for wrongdoing altogether and conditions 
restraint and discipline wholly upon the degree of responsibility 
possessed by the subject, he being confined until he can volunta- 
rily modify his will and habits, when he may be allowed to have 
his liberty again, It has a purely humanitarian object, the very 



246 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

opposite of the system founded upon the exaction of satisfaction 
for wrong, is governed by compassion for mental and moral 
weakness that handicap the individual in the struggle for exist- 
ence, and aims to establish the supremacy of rational functions 
in the life of the individual by promoting prudence and self- 
sacrifice, which are rendered absolutely necessary by the severe 
pressure of environment represented by restraints. 

3. Retribution, or Retributive Punishment. — This is 
punishment proper in both form and object. It is what is 
often called punitive justice, which follows the old conception 
of rendering satisfaction for crime in terms of pain. Retributive 
expresses this idea, denoting a return for ill done, which is 
supposed to be the equivalent of the wrong. It was a mode 
of satisfying the person supposed to have the right of revenge. 
In the earliest stages of life the individual wronged was granted 
the right and power to avenge himself. Society handed the crim- 
inal over to the injured party, or permitted that party to decide 
the mode of punishment. The next step was to assume the 
function of executing the revenge itself, as more likely to 
temper the punishment to the crime and to control or eliminate 
the mere desire for revenge. This transfer of the right of 
revenge to society was a decided advance in civilization and 
humanity, in that it restrained vindictiveness and encouraged a 
judicial treatment of wrongdoing by employing the judgment of 
more disinterested parties in making the award. The progress of 
civilization has been gradually moving away from the notion of 
pure retribution in punishment, although the conception of pun- 
ishment and the feelings of man toward wrongdoing retain some 
of their original import and intensity. It is hard to eradicate 
from man and his institutions the notion of desert in the infliction 
of punishment, and the fact is decidedly in favor of retribution, 
if not in its motive, certainly in the measure of pain inflicted, 
because it is a criterion of the degree of responsibility supposed 
to characterize the subject. But the ground upon which it is 
placed is not the worth of personality, but the amount of injury 
done by wrong. When applied in its pure form it pays as little 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 247 

attention to the correction of the individual as does the policy of 
prevention. Indeed it is practically nothing but prevention plus 
the satisfaction of revenge, at least in its original form, while its 
later form, though eliminating the right of the injured party to 
decide the punishment, endeavors to determine the amount of 
desert more calmly and judicially, but nevertheless gives some 
respect to offended morality in the severity of its measures; 
whether justly or not it is unnecessary to say at present. 

It is superfluous to say anything about the relation between 
necessitarianism and retributive punishment, for they are ab- 
solutely opposed to each other. Necessitarians must suppose 
that moral indignation, with its tendency to inflict punishment 
vindictively, is absurd, because a man's actions, if necessitated, 
are no more to be blamed than the falling of a stone, and as- 
suming this, the satisfaction of revenge can accomplish nothing 
either in the way of compensation or correction. They must 
think so in regard to retribution, though they grant that it can- 
not be helped and that it is as much necessitated as the volitions 
which they account for in their way. They can only regard it 
as one of the many inconsistencies of nature which does not 
square with their theory and their humanity. Hence they must 
oppose all legislative attempts to adopt retribution as a motive 
of punishment, though their sense of humor apart from the fatal 
necessity of their own action might teach them that it was use- 
less to do that. 

But whatever the relation between necessitarianism and re- 
tributive theories of punishment, it is important to observe that 
retribution assumes perfect responsibility for conduct. Inas- 
much as it has not been identified, and could not consistently 
be identified, with indefinite periods of restraint, it assumes 
equality of criminal character as well as criminality of conduct, 
and shapes the penalty to suit its view of the supposed fact, and 
that is that there are no palliating circumstances in human 
weakness and defects. It assumes that crime is committed in 
cold blood, with, perfect consciousness of its nature, its conse- 
quences and heinousness, and without any palliation in bad 



248 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

education, environment, habits, and heredity, and for this reason 
supposes all men equal. But in spite of this assumption com- 
mon sense has been too strong to follow out the theory consist- 
ently. Concessions have been made, consciously and uncon- 
sciously, from time to time in the course of progress to the 
feeling that men are not morally equal and that they are not 
equally responsible. This opinion has been too well confirmed 
by the doctrine of evolution, whose chief value lies, not in any 
new end which it discovers for the moral life, nor in any new 
principles which it might enable us to apply, but in the decided 
limitations which it proves to exist regarding responsibility 
and the moral equality of men. In this it has dealt a useful 
blow to the theory of retributive punishment, if not in wholly 
eliminating its principle of desert, certainly in showing the 
caution with which it should be applied. If necessitarianism 
were only a theory of limited responsibility, which it is not, the 
humanitarian movement for the rational treatment of criminals, 
which has been associated with it, might have saved it from 
much hostility. But it has so thoroughly antagonized the 
doctrine of free will as to make its humanitarianism absurd, 
showing once more that men are usually better than their 
theories where they are serious at all. But even if the theory 
has its weakness, the conception of man and his limitations 
which has been associated with it has been more correct perhaps 
than that of the freedomist who in advocating freedom has 
assumed or asserted a doctrine of responsibility which was as 
untrue as the necessitarian's denial of freedom. Probably both 
parties equally misconceived the issue, and the consequence has 
been a useless controversy on both sides. The reconciliation of 
both of them by the admission of freedom and the denial of 
perfect and equal responsibility in all men, confirmed and con- 
ditioned as this latter is by the unequal moral development of 
men, prepares the way for modifying or abandoning retributive 
punishment and substituting corrective discipline for it. Cor- 
rection is the only motive that can keep down passion and set 
up reason in the administration of punitive justice. More- 



RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 240 

over, with indefinite periods of restraint, this system can adapt 
itself more readily to man's limited responsibility and make his 
moralization, rather than retributive satisfaction, the main object 
of his discipline. This, after all, is the process of nature with 
man. It is one of development into higher degrees of responsi- 
bility, and social institutions should imitate it in their methods. 
It does not assume that men are equal, but aims to make them 
so. Corrective discipline, therefore, is the only policy consistent 
with men's unequal responsibility, and it effects its purpose by 
the modification of their environment and the application of all 
influences that can affect their habits. This is the method of 
nature, though it shows more patience, mercy, and long suffering 
than man himself in the administration of its laws. The his- 
tory of man's whole growth in responsibility is the history of 
evolution and of education. All the complex arrangements of 
environment, political and social institutions, education, penal 
discipline, religious sanctions, and conditions meant to arrest the 
first impulses of the will, are agencies which presuppose moral 
inequalities and therefore limited responsibility, but aim, by 
directing man's habits, to secure him the right to a larger 
liberty. All punishment should aim to imitate this system of 
moralizing forces. It should make the life of the criminal one 
of probation instead of retributive suffering, and it proceeds 
upon a mistaken conception of responsibility, if it does not allow 
for ignorance, passion, heredity, and similar influences. The 
responsibility of scholasticism is an ideal, not a reality, and 
punishment while assuming its limited character should be 
directed to the development of it into a higher degree. 

Note. — There is a question as to what determines the degree as well as 
the kind of punishment, and the doctrine of indefinite periods of confine- 
ment would seem to imply that it depends upon the degree of responsi- 
bility. If " degree of punishment" be synonymous with indefinite periods 
of restraint, this would be true ; but it is not altogether so. As above pre- 
sented, the less the responsibility the longer the restraint, and the greater 
the responsibility the shorter the restraint, assuming in the former case 
that the punishment requires this to be effective, and in the latter that it 
does not. But when it comes to punishment other than merely the pre- 



250 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

ventive form, the greater the responsibility the severer the punishment, 
and the less the responsibility the milder the punishment. This is 
especially applicable to retributive forms of punishment. But the kind 
and degree of penalty is not wholly determined by the degree of responsi- 
bility- It is also affected by the character of the act apart from the 
responsibility of the agent, or rather in addition to it. Punishment of 
every kind can be applied only to actions in which social welfare is in- 
fringed ; that is, it applies only in matters of justice, and this is determined 
solely by objective morality. Responsibility being the same the degree of 
punishment will be proportioned to the amount of injury done, and the 
amount of injury being the same, the period of restraint will be proportioned 
to the degree of responsibility possessed by the agent. This is determined 
solely by subjective conditions. But the fact that objective morality may 
vary with the same degree of responsibility makes it necessary to vary the 
pressure exerted by penalties in order, on the one hand, to strengthen the 
motives against temptation, and, on the other, to compensate for the 
amount of injury done in a crime. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE. 

I. INTRODUCTORY.— The discussion of the preceding chapter 
revealed the fact that the existence of conscience was necessary 
to responsibility. It implies that freedom, being given responsi- 
bility and conscience, must stand or fall together. If we hold 
that man is responsible we must also assume that he has a con- 
science. On the other hand, if he has a moral nature he must 
be responsible. The two conceptions are in fact practically iden- 
tical and connected with the same social interests. It remains 
now, after having stated the relation between conscience and 
responsibility, to investigate the nature of conscience and to dis- 
cuss the various problems involved in the history of controver- 
sies about it. Thus far we have only alluded to conscience as a 
sense of duty and as a motive to volition of a special kind. 
But we took no account of its peculiar character as a distinguish- 
ing trait of man, farther than to regard it as offering the highest 
motive to the will. We have now to examine its constitution, 
development, and authority, all of which enter into the questions 
regarding its function in the economy of life. This process will 
involve the study of several matters of interest which will be 
comprehended in the history of the idea expressed by the term, 
the history of the term, the philosophic conception of conscience, 
its analysis, and its development. They might all of them be 
comprehended under its definition, but this will appear too broad 
a use of the term to embrace the question of the analysis and 
origin of conscience, and hence we shall confine the definition to 
the other topics. 

231 



252 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

II. THE DEFINITION OF CONSCIENCE.— A complete defi- 
nition of what is expressed by the term conscience involves a 
rather elaborate process. It is not enough to know that it may 
be regarded as a particular moral faculty, because so many con- 
ceptions of it have been held that we should pre-empt the value 
of many of them by forestalling all interest in their meaning. 
Hence the definition of what we shall finally regard as a very 
complex function must be preceded by a study of the growth of 
the idea expressed by the term conscience. As a preliminary 
definition, however, we can adopt the notion that conscience is a 
name for the consciousness of moral distinctions and of the obliga- 
tion to respect them. In this conception we have not identified it 
with moral nature, because that expression is often taken to 
denote various functions which may regulate right conduct with- 
out involving the sense of duty. This may be a wrong concep- 
tion, but it nevertheless exists and assumes that morality may 
be purely objective and our disposition to realize it nothing 
more than prudence and instinct, which will go by the name 
moral because they happen to be directed to what is called a 
moral order. Conscience, however, may be a reflective capac- 
ity concerned with the consciousness of man's relation and duties 
to this moral order, and requires to be examined as such, though 
w T e shall often find it identified with the general notion of a 
moral nature. 

1st. History of the Conception. — The conception of conscience 
is much older than a term to denote it specifically. It was not 
clear and well defined at first, because no conception ever becomes 
so until philosophic analysis is applied to it. But the conscious- 
ness of a peculiar function in man's moral life and nature appeared 
probably as early as he began to respect social feelings and to 
mark conduct or desires in conflict with them. Perhaps if we 
were to push inquiries back into the lore and legends of savage 
life we should find traces of the idea in the social institutions there 
adopted and the behavior of those who respected or violated 
them. But we need not go so far back as all this. We can be 
content with the ordinary limits of occidental history, with 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 253 

which the philosophic interest of modern times is more particu- 
larly connected, including herein a brietf allusion to Judaistic 
development, but confining the most of our attention to Hellenic 
thought. 

The first trace of the idea of conscience, showing a high grade 
of civilization, is probably found in the mythological conception 
of the Furies. At first these were, of course, external divinities 
whose business it was to avenge crime, and no element of con- 
science as an internal faculty would appear to have been present. 
But aside from the testimony to a moral nature which such a 
myth represents, when the rationalistic age appeared it utilized 
the idea to express the revenge which a man's own remorse in- 
flicted upon him for his wrongdoing. This was the natural 
result of a desire to obtain a useful meaning or truth out of 
what men were forced to admit was literally a legend. In 
many of the Greek poets the spiritual, that is, moral concep- 
tion of the Furies, coupled with their well-known disbelief in the 
external existence of such beings, can only be interpreted as evi- 
dence that they found in man's nature an avenger of wrong, the 
reaction of his own nature against the violation of better 
instincts. This was a limited conception, it is true, but, though 
it goes no farther than to express the feeling of remorse and pen- 
itence for wrong already done, it goes as far as many a popular 
use of the term still goes, which in fact is due to that very 
usage and conception. Some writers, as Benn, for instance, dis- 
pute the right to consider the Furies as in any way representing 
the idea of conscience, for the reason that the term does not involve 
any premonitory distinction between right and wrong, but only 
a dread of consequences after the act. But this wholly depends 
upon the question whether we shall limit the conception of con- 
science to a cognitive power or allow it to include the retro- 
spective emotions. Usage is not always the same in this matter. 
Sometimes conscience seems to be merely an intellectual power to 
show man the path of duty and sometimes it is the retrospect 
of consciousness upon its own course of conduct, and nothing hin- 
ders us from supposing that the two may go together, while we 



254 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

assume that mythology, with the moral interests of the age 
which it represented, emphasized the emotional element as show- 
ing the most distinct traces in man of a capacity for respecting 
the rights of his fellows, even if they appeared only after the 
deed was done. Besides, all students of human nature have 
recognized in the various features of the Furies the reflection of 
what is popularly called conscience, and thus the representation 
of a literary analysis. Whether we choose to regard it as repre- 
senting the whole of what is thought of as conscience depends 
upon the definition, but it certainly indicates the belief in a 
function of mind which is more than mere prudence or regard 
for self, and displays the social element of man's nature, which 
becomes absorbed in the later notion of morality and its sanc- 
tions. That function seemed unique to the primitive mind, and 
the power which it did have, or should have, might well be per- 
sonified in the conception of deities who were to be the avengers 
of wrong. 

A passing allusion to the stoiy of Cain and the curse he was 
to suffer for the murder of his brother Abel, suffices to show that 
Judaistic thought had recognized the same peculiarity in man, 
though the intellectual fortunes of that people did not give rise 
to so elaborated a view as Hellenic literature. The idea, too, 
seems not to have survived nor to have been needed after the 
establishment of " cities of refuge," which were a protection to 
the criminal from too much license in the exercise of revenge, 
though beyond their limits this passion seems to have enjoyed 
free development. This political arrangement to punish wrong, 
with its slight limitations seems to have made the. moral appeal, 
found in Hellenic thought, either unnecessary or ineffective. 
At any rate, little more than a hint of what the rationalistic 
mind finds in the idea of the Furies of Greek mythology ever 
appears in Jewish legend and law. But if it did not discover 
the retrospective and emotional element of conscience, it found 
asocial conception equally important in its notion of faithful- 
ness or fidelity of will to a principle of righteousness, which was 
only another name for conscience as a director of man's conduct 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 255 

toward his fellows and in his relation to the moral law. In the 
Old Testament this conception is very prominent, and it repre- 
sents to the moralists, the prophets of that time, the conception 
of that peculiarity in man which distinguishes him as a moral 
being and which now goes by the name of conscience. 

To return to Hellenic thought, the " daemon "(tf^zyuoVzoy) of 
Socrates has often been regarded as the equivalent of con- 
science, and it is even supposed that Socrates intended his view 
of it to be a doctrine of conscience. This we regard as a mis- 
taken view of it, reflected rather from the admirable and consci- 
entious character of Socrates than from what he meant by his 
doctrine. There are three characteristics in his doctrine of the 
"daemon," governing him and his conduct, which shut it out 
from being conceived as denoting conscience in any proper sense 
of the term. They are : (a) It was an external, not an inner, 
monitor of his conduct ; (6) it was a warning not to act, and 
never an imperative to do the right ; (c) it was a supernatural 
influence advising Socrates against certain things that were 
imprudent and whose consequences he could not foreknow. All 
these shut it out from being anything like what we call con- 
science, except in one accidental feature of being to some extent 
a guide to conduct. But whatever the resemblance in this 
respect, it was too far removed from the cognitive and emotional 
ideas of conscience to be included among the representatives of it. 

Plato's conception of reason regulating desire was much 
nearer the later doctrine of conscience than the " daemon " 
of Socrates. It represents in the mind a higher power than 
desire and passion, a power which has the highest good for 
its object and which keeps the other two in subordination to 
itself, or moderates them to a due mean in their satisfaction. 
The latter is the truer conception of its function, and shows why 
Plato did not reach so radical a distinction between desire 
and reason as many modern writers make between desire and 
conscience. With Plato both may have the same object in 
kind, but not in degree or rank. Desire was likely to be irra- 
tional and intemperate in its pursuit of good, while reason kept 



256 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

this impulse under control and directed the will to a remoter 
end, which, though the good of desire, was adjusted to the perfec- 
tion and virtue of the individual subject. But the modern doc- 
trine of conscience often wholly rejects the good of desire as its 
object, and sets up another of a different kind by radically 
distinguishing between the good and virtue, the good being hap- 
piness and virtue action according to law, or a quality of will. 
The distinction is one which probably cannot be clearly made in 
the last analysis in any sense that would wholly separate the 
good from virtue, but its motive has been to separate desire and 
conscience sufficiently to prevent the confusion of moral objects 
of volition with that of merely natural desires. But in so far 
as reason was a power subordinating all other impulses to a 
higher law, it represented at least one function of conscience as 
universally understood. 

Aristotle and the Stoics followed in the same general line of 
thought, the former, however, being less ascetic than the latter, 
and in that respect does not develop the antithesis between 
desire and reason so emphatically as Plato and the redoubtable 
Stoics. Moreover, the use of the term reason to denote the gen- 
eral cognition of truth apart from morality was likely to confuse 
its meaning with that of a power supreme over impulse and 
which was not cognitive at all, and hence the Stoics seem to 
have been the first to employ a term which denoted the con- 
sciousness of right as opposed to the consciousness of fact or truth, 
and which ultimately came to denote consciousness in general. 
It was a term for " concomitant knowledge " (Gweidrjais) and 
in later philosophers was often distinctly used for conscience. It 
denoted reflective knowledge on matters of conduct. It was the 
idea of a power to perceive the right prior to its performance, as 
the mythological conception was that of self-judgment posterior 
to the act, and so was an attempt to distinguish duty from truth, 
though the distinction became clear with time and under the in- 
fluence of another type of thought. There was also in the Stoic 
philosophy the consciousness of man's entire subordination to 
nature, the dutv to live in obedience to the law of nature and 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 257 

reason, which, if it was not a doctrine of conscience, represented 
much the same conceptions as that doctrine. The sacrifice of 
desire to this higher law with its stern resistance_to the pursuit of 
pleasure resembles and may even be said to have given the 
coloring to the asceticism associated with the modern idea 
of conscience. The idea but not the name was there, though it 
did not reach so well-defined a development as under Christian 
thought. 

The Epicureans had no place for the idea, and the Neo-Platon- 
ists absorbed it in a doctrine of religious ecstasy, which did not 
distinguish, as the. modern doctrine of conscience does, between 
the moral and the religious. This distinction, however, is due to 
an age that w T as more skeptical in regard to the divine, and yet 
retained its conviction of the importance of social order and law> 
to which it confined the function of conscience. The Neo-Pla- 
tonists make the moral and the religious objects of volition the 
same, and with them Christianity agreed, while following the as- 
ceticism of Plato, the Stoics, and the Neo-Platonists. 

In spite of the lofty conceptions of Stoicism and Keo-Platonism, 
Greek life generally did not approach a doctrine of conscience in 
its conception of the right. Before the Stoics the resemblance is 
lost in the conception of prudence, wisdom, and the highest 
good, which, w T hile they involved the control of natural desires 
and passions, nevertheless represented an attraction of reason 
which was less exacting and required less of the notion of sac- 
rifice than the modern conception of conscience. The. Greek 
always interpreted the object of volition as a good, even when he 
called it virtue, and drew the distinction only when he wanted to 
lower the rank of pleasure and to elevate that of perfection, 
though he always admitted that pleasure was its accompaniment. 
He did not think that the attainment of the good involved any 
struggle except with himself. A life according to nature was at 
the basis of all Greek consciousness, inasmuch as it looked upon 
nature as an ideal system of realit} T . The antithesis between 
nature and God had not yet been raised. The world was organ- 
ized in the interests of man, and he had only to regulate the 



258 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

anarchic tendencies of his own impulses in order to attain the 
good. The sacrifice involved was not regarded as a sacrifice, 
inasmuch as it was compensated by a higher good, and hence the 
object of volition to the Greek consciousnsss was always pre- 
sented as an attraction, a fascinating good, if only the individual 
could be made to see it. Even the submission of the Stoic was 
not a surrender of self to the insatiable demands of law, but was 
only a rational adjustment to an order which brought ineffable 
peace and contentment with it. But in Christianity, and later 
thought, with their opposition between nature and God, added to 
that between desire and reason, there was the sense of a struggle 
against opposing influences in the pursuit of virtue which was 
seldom if ever felt by the Greek. The modern notion of con- 
science was born of struggle against nature, not for adjustment 
to it. It appears most distinctly in Christianity, especially in 
St. Paul, where it denotes a life of sacrifice and struggle, of op- 
position to the world and the flesh, external nature and passion, 
wholly repudiating pleasure as an object of true volition, and 
ever since, the conception has retained more or less of that color- 
ing, as is clearly indicated in the prevalent notion that duty is 
always opposed to interest. It also adds more distinctly the 
notion of self-judgment to that of conscientious direction of the 
will, while distinguishing more clearly than even the Stoics the 
conflict between the law of reason and of desire. 

Scholastic and mediaeval thought simply developed what 
Christianity inaugurated, namely, the sense of struggle with the 
world and with desire in the process of regeneration, and defined 
conscience as the oracle of God in the human breast, command- 
ing inflexible obedience to His will and intensified the sacrifice 
of natural pleasures to the attainment of salvation. But when 
the Renaissance, with its revival of Greek ideals, the Protestant 
Reformation, with its inherent tendencies to Rationalism, and the 
industrial development, with its purely economic and social ideals, 
appeared, the notion of conscience became secularized, losing its 
religious import, though retaining all the inflexibility and abso- 
luteness of its traditional signification. But with the confluence 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 259 

of so many streams of thought, it has gathered into its folds most 
of the conceptions that have been affiliated with the morality of 
all ages and has become too complex to be described by a single 
epithet, though it is distinguished from ancient thought by the 
sublime and unbending adhesion to law which it commands 
against the allurements of passion and pleasure. 

2d. History of the Term "Conscience." — The history of the\/ 
term conscience partly coincides with the history of the idea, but 
not altogether so. The Stoics seem to have been the first to 
adopt the Greek equivalent of the Latin conscientia, namely, 
(DweidrjGis, and w T ere followed in its employment by the Neo- 
Platonists and New Testament writers, principally St. Paul. 
Its earliest meaning was self-consciousness as opposed to mere 
knowledge of the unreflective sort, and did not denote conscien- 
tiousness as conscience does to-day. It was to denote a more 
distinct conception of responsibility and moral character that 
the term was adopted, to indicate, not only that the agent was 
conscious in his action, but that he was conscious of this con- 
sciousness and could control his action by deliberation. Hence 
the first conception was self- consciousness as distinguished from 
conscientiousness, though it involved a conception of right as 
distinct from truth. St. Paul's usage of the term gives it a more 
modern coloring, though it is possible in most cases to substitute 
consciousness for it. With the development of Christianity the 
term began to differentiate from the primary meaning of the 
term from which it was taken until mere consciousness is not 
enough to indicate its meaning and the two ideas are quite dis- 
tinct in all but the French language where conscience and con- 
sciousness are denoted by the same term (conscience). To con- 
sciousness the idea of conscience now adds the conception of 
conscientiousness or the sense of duty, submission to a law of 
reason, often, if not always, in antagonism with interest and 
desire. But in the course of its history it absorbed all the asso- 
ciations and implications involved in morality and the influences 
designed to make it effective. This can be illustrated by exam- 
ining some of the current definitions of the term. 



260 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

3d. Current and Other Meanings of the Term The vari- 
ous definitions of conscience have taken their coloring from the 
general philosophy of the men giving them, now having a theo- 
logical import, and now an ethical as distinct from the purely 
cognitive function of the mind. This will be apparent from the 
examination of several of them. 

Bishop Butler defined conscience as " the principle in man by 
which he approves or disapproves of his heart, temper, and 
actions." This conception makes conscience wholly an emotional 
capacity of estimating the value of objects of will. If judgment 
be even implied in it, that function is so remote from the notion 
of cognition that it does not require to be taken into account. 
But certainly the prominent element is emotion both of the pros- 
pective kind, which forecasts the ideal and obligatory object of 
volition, and of the retrospective kind, which expresses the satis- 
faction or dissatisfaction of the subject with his conduct after it 
is done. Yet there is nothing in this definition which expresses, 
more than by implication, the sense of imperativeness so gener- 
ally associated with the conception of conscience. 

Dugald Stewart says : " Conscience coincides exactly with 
moral faculty, with the difference that the former refers to our 
own conduct, while the latter expresses the power by which we 
approve or disapprove the conduct of others." This is a very 
interesting definition, inasmuch as it distinguishes between the 
mental states involved in self -judgment and those in the judg- 
ment of others. For instance, penitence and remorse can only 
be felt in reference to self. We cannot feel remorse, but only 
grief, for others. Remorse is self-condemnation, and in so far as 
conscience is the power of reflection on our own personal re- 
sponsibility, it cannot be identified with the feelings that pro- 
nounce judgment on others. Hence Stewart reflects the influ- 
ence of the popular mind upon his conception of conscience, and 
thus makes its limits narrower than moral faculty. He seems, 
however, to make it wholly emotional in its functions. 

Schopenhaur is quite emphatic in the same limitation. He 
does not identify it with moral faculty at all. He defines it 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 261 

simply as " the satisfaction or dissatisfaction, approval or disap- 
proval, of ourselves." What the judgment of the conduct of 
others would be, this view does not say. 

Wuttke defines conscience as " the revelation of God given in 
rational self-consciousness." This is a purely theological con- 
ception which does not even imply a judgment of conduct, and 
comes from that early period of thought when conscience was 
supposed to be the only trace of the divine in man. But in- 
stead of reflecting the moral in man as divine, it indicates noth- 
ing more than a revelation of what could not be found in 
nature. It expresses no faculty to perceive right and wrong 
apart from external authority, which virtually dispenses with 
the need of conscience altogether, as it is ordinarily understood. 
We require to know whether in man moral faculty is anything 
more than mere intellectual acumen for perceiving distinctions 
which it cannot enforce. 

Martineau, in accordance with his peculiar theory, regards 
conscience as the power to judge of the relative value of compet- 
ing springs or motives in consciousness at the same time. This 
is interesting only as making it purely cognitive in its nature 
and adjusted to tha purely relative character of moral distinc- 
tions in a developing creature. Neither its merits nor demerits 
can be considered here without going into Martineau's general 
ethical theory, which cannot be done in this treatise. We can 
only allude to it as a unique definition. 

Dorner is more comprehensive in his conception. " Con- 
science," he says, " is a knowledge of moral good and combines 
the functions of a cognitive, a legislative, and a judicial power." 
This view most distinctly recognizes the several and complex 
elements entering into its constitution. It represents, first, the 
power of perceiving that there is a right and a wrong, the con- 
sciousness of moral distinctions in general and in particular, 
which is a peculiarity of moral faculty. Theu, it recognizes 
that most important function of conscience which represents it 
as legislating for the will, imposing a law for its guidance and 
constraining it to obedience. Lastly, it includes the judgment 



262 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

or verdict pronounced upon conduct ; it denotes, in its judicial 
functions, the sense of approval or disapproval of conduct, the 
emotional estimation of it before or after its performance. 
These involve a combination of all the elements recognized 
separately by the other definitions and make it truer than they 
to the various uses of common life. It will conduce to practical 
purposes only when it can be made thus comprehensive. 

The definition of Dorner cannot be easily improved upon, for 
it recognizes precisely the elements which predominate in the 
fully developed conception of conscience. But in order to 
express the comprehensiveness of it, on the one hand, and the 
intimacy of its connection with general consciousness, on the 
other, we shall define the sense in which we shall understand the 
term in our present discussions. Instead of regarding it as a 
separate faculty of the mind in the old sense, when it was thought 
that it was a sort of external addition to intelligence in general, 
we shall consider it as a complex function embracing this and 
other aspects of mind as well. Those definitions which make it 
purely cognitive in nature treat it as a simple faculty ; so also 
those which make it merely judicial or merely legislative, and 
they very greatly confuse the problem of its development, as well 
as that of its authority and power. "We shall, therefore, treat it 
as a complex organism, and define it in the most comprehensive 
terms possible. Conscience, as here understood, is the mind occu- 
pied with moral phenomena. This conception of it does not treat 
it as a special faculty distinct from the others as emotion is dis- 
tinct from cognition. Were it a unique simple power, we might 
define it with such limitations. But we regard it as too com- 
plex, as comprehending too many functions in the unity of sev- 
eral relations to a common end, for us to treat it as a simple 
power. Hence it is best to regard it, so far as it is a power, as 
the mind exercising any and every function related to moral 
objects. The importance of this comprehensive view will be 
apparent when we come to analyze its full contents. At present 
we wish only to emphasize the fact that it is not a simple faculty. 

One thing to be noted in this definition is that it does not 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 263 

involve the supposition of anything different in nature about 
conscience from other mental activities as such, but only in the 
objects to which those activities are applied. The advantage of 
this will appear in discussing the evolution of conscience. We 
are in the habit of distinguishing the various capacities of the 
mind and maintaining that one of them cannot be a modification 
or derived quality from the others. This is true of such states as 
cognition and emotion, sensation and memory, etc. If, then, we 
regarded conscience as a faculty in this sense it would seem to be 
unique and underived. But by speaking and thinking of it as 
the mind in one of its relations we put it on the level of such 
conceptions as " scientific capacities," " artistic capacities," " me- 
chanical genius," etc., all of which merely denote the operation 
of the same functions either in different proportions of combina- 
tion or as applied to different objects. Thus " scientific capac- 
ity " does not employ any different functions from the " artistic." 
Consciousness, perception, feeling, will, are involved in both of 
them. But the direction of them is not the same. In scientific 
activity perception is the passive observation of facts and their 
causal order ; in art it is the consciousness of an ideal order. In 
scientific employments emotion is curiosity and its satisfaction ; 
in art it is aesthetic enjoyment of order, harmony, color, and the 
pleasing incidents of life. In science the will is attention and 
the direction of observation ; in art it is both attention and the 
executive act of producing something. But we see in both the 
same functions with only a change of object and direction. The 
main object of science is truth ; that of art is beauty. But art 
cannot disregard truth and the emotions to which it gives rise, 
and science cannot wholly eliminate emotion from its pursuits, 
though it modifies the mode of their application. The same 
general truth holds good for conscience or moral capacity. It is 
not a new and distinct function compared with the others of the 
mind. It is only their combination in different proportions and 
with a different object, unless we except the unique and inde- 
pendent character of the sense of duty, the " categorical impera- 
tive." But apart from this peculiarity it is certainly nothing 



264 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

but the mind employed in a certain way, just as science is the 
mind employed in its way. That the sense of duty or moral con- 
straint is not wholly indigenous to Ethics might be maintained 
from its resemblance or identity with the sense of logical neces- 
sity, the constraint of truth. 

There is one important fact to be observed in giving such a 
definition as is here proposed. It is that in philosophic usage 
the term conscience has a very interesting ambiguity in connec- 
tion with the traditional and current discussions about it. The 
definition adopted endeavors to avoid it. But sometimes the 
term conscience is used to denote merely a power or capacity 
which may or may not manifest itself but yet exists. This we shall 
call the transcendental import of the term, but meaning no more 
thereby than that there is something more conceived by it than 
the mere mental states which are illustrations of its activity and 
proofs of its existence. There is the second meaning, which 
applies to any one or all of the mental states which represent it. 
This we shall call the phenomenal import of the term, and shall 
mean thereby the manifestations of the mind which show moral 
perception and feeling. The first or transcendental meaning 
denotes a capacity, power, or faculty ; the second denotes a phe- 
nomenon or group of phenomena. 

The importance of this distinction will be discussed when we 
come to consider the evolution of conscience. At present we 
require only to understand the meaning of such statements as 
that a certain man "has no conscience." This may mean that 
he has no capacity for appreciating moral distinctions of any 
kind whatever, or it may mean only that he does not exhibit 
certain feelings and sympathies which we should expect of him. 
Thus a man commits a peculiarly cruel crime and we describe 
him as without a conscience, though not necessarily implying 
that there is nothing in him to be trained to know and feel the 
right, but only that he has not shown and does not show it. 
This is only to say that although the faculty may exist, it is not 
active or effective. The definition which we have given is 
designed to cover both conceptions, so that we can be at liberty 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 265 

to use it in either sense as occasion may require. It is no doubt 
most general to employ it to denote a certain group of phe- 
nomena as effective influences molding the life and conduct of 
the individual. But the other meaning lurks in the background 
often enough to make the affirmation and the denial of con- 
science less contradictory than the statements are intended to be. 
This will appear in its proper place. We must now proceed to 
the analysis of conscience. 

III. ANALYSIS OF CONSCIENCE.— -The definition of con- 
science has shown us that it is not a simple faculty with only 
one single function, but a complex set of functions connected 
with the mind as a general agent and differing from the same 
functions otherwise employed only in the objects about which it 
is concerned. The analysis of it will further show this com- 
plexity. But it is a complexity of functions rather than a 
complexity of agents. This is already evident enough. But in 
analyzing it we are to remember that we are not intending to 
analyze it as a faculty ; that is, transcendentally, but phe- 
nomenally. We shall separate the various elements that com- 
pose it as a name for a group of phenomena, so as to find what 
it is that gives conscience its complexity. In this analysis we 
shall find that it is not quite coincident with what is called 
moral faculty at large, which includes autonomy and volition ; 
that is, conative functions, while conscience seems to be confined 
to intellectual and emotional functions preceding the action of 
the will as an effort to realize morality externally considered, 
though aside from this limitation it may contain elements of will 
subjectively regarded. The will enters into conscience only in 
so far as it is represented in attention, interest, and good disposi- 
tion. Hence our analysis while taking account Oi the fact will 
lay the most stress upon the intellectual and emotional elements. 
1st. The Intellectual Element. — By the intellectual or cogni- 
tive element of conscience we mean the consciousness of some 
ideal object to be attained and the judgment of discrimination 
between what is right and what is wrong. Those who limit 
conscience to approbation and disapprobation of conduct do not 



266 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

ascribe cognitive power to it at all, and yet we require to know 
not only the ultimate end which is called good or bad, right or 
wrong, but r.lso the particular actions which lead to it. Moral 
judgment is the name for the process of distinguishing right 
from wrong, and it is simply the cognitive clement of conscience 
which enlightens, leads, and guides the emotional and impulsive 
functions to the right end. It gives the knowledge of virtue, 
but not its power. It is the cognition of the good as distinct 
from the perception of truth. No matter how correct our feel-, 
ings may be, moral judgment is required to determine for us 
7/hen we shall act rightly ; not when the will is correct, but 
when it is rightly directed. Conscience determines its ideal, and 
moral judgment is the element of it which decides when a par- 
ticular act agrees or disagrees with that ideal. The criminal 
who knows what is right, but does not feel the constraint of 
duty sufficiently to obey it, has the cognitive element of con- 
science sufficiently to establish his responsibility. In fact, what- 
ever feelings of constraint or approbation a man might feel they 
would be of little avail, in establishing responsibility, if they 
were not accompanied by intelligence as to the end to which 
they were directed. The principal function of conscience in de- 
termining responsibility is knowledge of the end and of the 
means to attain it, and knowledge of its character. Moral 
judgment is governed by this cognition in discriminating be- 
tween right and wrong actions as means to an end. 

2d. The Emotional Element. — This represents in general 
the feeling attending our judgments of conduct. We may call 
it the feeling of right and wrong as distinguished from the mere 
perception of truth. It is this peculiarity which has given rise 
to the idea that conscience is unique in its nature and excludes 
cognition proper. It comprehends more or less of the sense of 
obligation or the feeling of constraint that a certain thing ought 
to be done and a certain opposite thing ought not to be done. 
Perception is an element of this complex, but it is not the dis- 
tinguishing element. It is the emotional element of apprecia- 
tion or depreciation that distinguishes the act from purely 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 267 

scientific judgments of fact and truth, and both gives the phe- 
nomenon greater complexity and endows it with greater power 
than mere knowledge. It is the first condition of its influence 
on the will, and distinguishes morality from the satisfaction of 
truth, on the one hand, and from the feeling of beauty on the 
other. Science and art have their own emotional accompani- 
ments, but they are different in their quality from those of 
morality, at least in respect of the object which awakens them. 
The emotional aspect of conscience is social and personal, 
directed to the value of man as a personal being, while that of 
science and art is impersonal, directed to truth and beauty as 
objects of contemplation. The feeling of right and wrong is 
thus connected with personal worth, whether in self or others, 
and respects all conditions affecting that worth. It shows itself 
in a variety of ways and relations, now in the contemplation of 
actions and ideals still to be realized, now in the contemplation 
of actions already performed, and again as an impulsive feeling 
in the direction of approved actions. But we can resolve them 
into two general kinds, the judicial and the legislative functions 
of conscience. 

1. The Judicial Feelings. — These represent the mental 
verdict pronounced upon the character of conduct, the judgment 
of its worthiness or unworthiness. It is illustrated when we 
look at an act of honesty or contemplate it as beautiful or good, 
approving of it as an object of will. The mental satisfaction or 
tone of elevation felt when planning a course of virtue, or ex- 
horting it upon others, is another illustration of it, and it is 
again prominent in looking back upon actions already per- 
formed. Hence these feelings may take two forms, the prospec- 
tive and the retrospective. The prospective are the reflexes of 
what appears as ideal and moral to us, the sense of rightness 
and wrongness antecedent to a volition, the approval and dis- 
approval of possible acts. The retrospective are the same feel- 
ings after the act, the satisfaction and dissatisfaction in regard 
to conduct already realized. They are especially prominent in 
the elevated feeling of self-approval, or consciousness of recti- 



268 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

tude, and the opposite feelings of remorse, penitence, self-con- 
demnation, grief for wrongdoing, etc. It is in these feelings 
that we get the most distinct evidence of personal responsibility, 
inasmuch as we cannot produce or prevent the volitions of 
others. We can only approve or condemn them. But where 
the satisfaction for righteousness and dissatisfaction for sin, or 
self-approval and self-condemnation, appear we have distinct 
traces of conscience or a feeling of more than mere prudence 
and interest in the results involved. This is the reason that 
conscience has so often been identified with the retrospective 
emotions. But it is just as much evident in the prospective 
which serve to give motive power or efficiency to the cognition 
of virtue and to eliminate or inhibit it in the case of vice. 

2. The Legislative Feeling. — This is also a prospective 
emotion in the sense that it usually antecedes volition. But it is 
not of the nature of approval or disapproval. It is rather an 
injunctive or imperative feeling, the sense of constraint or neces- 
sity which the idea of duty expresses, and represents a sort of 
sovereignty over the unregulated and irrational impulses of the 
subject. It is the most important and distinctive of all the ele- 
ments of conscience. It is this which Kant expressed by the 
"categorical imperative," a sense of unconditional obligation 
which allows no liberty to the will in the pursuit of desire, 
and wherever it exists it excludes all other alternatives of 
legitimate choice. It is the moral law issuing its commands, 
and exacts either unconditional obedience or the acceptance 
of the consequences of disobedience. Where it is present the 
highest degree of responsibility is possible, assuming that the 
right and wrong are known correctly. It is not necessary to con- 
ceive this sense of duty as essentially in conflict with desire. It 
may be in perfect conformity with it. But it expresses neverthe- 
less the feeling of necessity attaching to the conduct commended 
by conscience as ideal and imperative. It merely indicates that 
the moral law can obtain satisfaction in no other way. Though 
it does not necessarily conflict with the desires, it keeps them in 
subordination to its own end, and sets them aside only when 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 269 

they fail to conduce to the same object or purpose. Hence 
it may be opposed to them, though not always. It is the ele- 
ment which gives moral quality to the act, while the other 
elements serve more as guides to the right choice of ends. They 
insure knowledge and feeling of what is right, the sense of the 
imperative exercises more motive efficiency in the firmness of its 
demand upon the will. It is most distinctly the moral as 
compared with the intellectual element of conscience and lies 
very closely to the will in its function and importance. 

3d. The Desiderative Element — -The element of conscience 
which comes nearest to containing the will, and which certainly 
interpenetrates its functions, is the desiderative or element of de- 
sire. It is very closely related to the legislative. Indeed, the two 
merge into each other. But the desiderative function is not dis- 
tinctly marked by constraint and excludes all conscious conflict 
with lower desires. It represents an ideal which conflicts with 
the exclusive gratification of such desires as avarice, voluptuous- 
ness, lust, inordinate appetites, selfish ambition, etc., but it does 
not feel their competition. In this relation and function it is it- 
self a predominant desire sanctified and transfigured by a tone 
of solemnity and self-consciousness which gives it all the force of 
a command, and indeed often involves it. It takes the various 
forms of reverence, conscientiousness, and good-will; of reverence 
when it is religious, or respect for God, of conscientiousness when 
it is respect for law or virtue, and of good-will when it is re- 
spect for man. This element of conscience expresses less constraint, 
or may even be devoid of it, than unconditional obligation, but 
only because it does not imply a conflict with competing inclina- 
tions. It therefore represents the highest development of con- 
science, and represents the feeling of what is imperative without 
the temptations which constraint has to overcome. It is illus- 
trated in the person who does his duty because he loves it, and 
who does not desire any other course of action. This aspect of 
conscience only needs enlightenment in order to secure freedom 
from error, while duty in competition with desire and interest 
requires strength in addition to enlightenment. 



270 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

The various elements recognized in this analysis of conscience 
show that it is a very complex organ as defined in the present 
treatise. Every one is, of course, at liberty to limit it to any one 
of the elements, but in so doing he should not quarrel with common 
sense and usage which has made no attempt to confine its appli- 
cation. If any contradiction be asserted of it after so limiting 
the term, it is a contradiction of the philosopher's own making, 
because he has arbitrarily chosen to give it a restricted applica- 
cation, and then imagined that some other usage of common life 
reflects an inconsistency, when the fact is that the conception is a 
general one, including many elements. No doubt it would 
conduce to philosophic simplicity if we could adopt but a single 
conception for the term ; but while this might eliminate some 
questions connected with conscience in common life, it would only 
create the need of other terms to denote either our moral nature 
as a whole or the various elements composing it. But it seems 
best to the present author to use the term to express the whole 
of our moral functions, except the initiative acts or choice and 
volition, and in this way we can best comprehend the doctrine of 
evolution, and reconcile the many controversies that in reality 
center about different instead of the same meanings of the term. 
If conscience can be a comprehensive term for several elements 
and functions of moral consciousness, it affords a point of indiffer- 
ence for all the questions involved in traditional discussions, 
while it permits the separation of individual problems from a 
connection which it is wrong to suppose they possess. With 
this fact in view we can take up some of these problems under the 
functions of conscience. 

IV. THE FUNCTIONS OF CONSCIENCE— -By the functions 
of conscience, as distinct from its elements, we mean what it does 
rather than what it is in life. The two facts are closely related, 
but this topic intends to express what it does as a whole, rather 
than what any of its specific elements may do. Each one of 
these elements will have its own psychological and moral func- 
tion or influence, but will not represent the faculty as a whole. 
We have now to see what conscience, as the sum or complex of 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE . 271 

these elements, effects for the organization of conduct in the direc- 
tion of morality. We shall recognizethree functions, namely, 
motivation, authority, and moralization. 

1st. Motivation. — The fact that conscience may furnish a mo- 
tive to the will has already been indicated in the discussion about 
motives. We require at present simply to examine the oft-dis- 
cussed relation between conscience and desire, as motives to voli- 
tion. We accept as admitted the fact that conscience can move 
the will, or is a capacity which indicates the direction of volition 
when that capacity is properly active. But it is a question 
whether its motivation is opposed to or independent of desire. 
Many conceive conscience as in conflict with natural desire, and 
thus set it up as the only process of moral motivation, and more 
distinctly imply or assert that moral action can occur only when 
there is the sense of conflict or struggle with natural impulses. 
Others, again, hold that conscience cannot be stronger than desire. 

There are several differences between the two which should 
always be kept in mind. First, desire is indifferent to either the 
good or the bad ; it may include both good and bad inclinations. 
It expresses only inclination for an object, and does not distin- 
guish the kind of inclination. Thus it is a name for the love of 
vice, of ambition, of wealth, of power,_of goodness, and of any crav- 
ing whatever which is a natural prompting of the individual. 
On the other hand, conscience is not indifferent to the distinction 
between right and wrong. It means always to express a direc- 
tion of the mind toward the good, whether it is successful in at- 
taining it or not. In the second place, desire is a name for 
spontaneous cravings, as opposed to the deliberative and self-con ; 
scious activity of conscience. Desire is called natural in that it 
is supposed to be an organic craving for some satisfaction, and 
its object has usually been regarded as pleasure, while conscience 
is treated as moral and with virtue as its object. The third 
difference is found in the limitation of desire to the lower organic 
impulses which arise in consciousness without any purposive 
effort, while conscience, with its deliberative and self-conscious 
action, is distinguished by rational consciousness of its end, and 



272 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

desire primarily is not, though we afterward become conscious of 
the meaning that its cravings express, and at once associate it 
with their occurrence. 

It is important always to take these differences of import and 
implication into account when discussing their relation, but we 
should not confuse them with the idea of their opposition. 
Conscience is not in its nature opposed to desire at large. It is 
opposed only to the wicked desires as good is opposed to bad. 
It represents itself an inclination, or the conscious want and de- 
mand for a good of some kind, even when it has to struggle with 
some other desire. In its character of a motive, therefore, it is 
desiderative in its nature, and the conflict between it and desire, 
which is so often made absolute, is nothing more than the con- 
flict between good and bad desires, conscience being a name for 
the former. Moreover, in the contrast between lower and 
higher desires conscience is the name for the higher. But this 
is a difference in quality rather than in the function of motivation, 
so far as desire moves the will at all, and hence we are mainly 
concerned with this function. This is to say, that the distinction 
between them is moral, not psychological. It is well to remark also 
that the term desire is not always consistent in either common 
or philosophic usage. It sometimes denotes a natural or spon- 
taneous craving of the organism, such as hunger, thirst, and 
sex, which, as a state of the body or mind, is not at first con- 
scious of its object. Then again it denotes every conscious lik- 
ing for an object and Avill include such promptings to action as 
voluptuousness, malice, love of wealth, of fame, of power, affec- 
tion, parental, filial, and social, and every inclination that seeks 
some satisfaction in attaining an end. It is only the first of 
these that can in any way be opposed to conscience, which is 
not only conscious of its end, but is reflective and rational. 
But then such desires as the first class are not properly motives 
to volition at all, inasmuch as they can only give rise to reflex 
actions, until consciousness and purpose are superimposed upon 
them to discover and direct to the end to which they, as blind 
cravings, seem to point. But in the wider sense of conscious 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 273 

desire, aware of its end, conscience is not opposed to it in princi- 
ple. It is only a name for one class of such desires. In this 
wider application there can be as much conflict between desires 
as is supposed to exist between conscience and desire, and in 
fact conscience in this relation is but a name for the desire that 
should prevail. Thus we solve the vexed question about the 
relation between duty and interest, which are often supposed to 
be in irreconcilable antagonism. It assumes that virtue is not 
possible without feeling the sense of duty and its antagonism to 
prudence and interest. The fact is that the constraint of duty 
is the same as the constraint felt in the conflict between two 
desires, as between the love of wealth and the love of a spend- 
thrift's pleasures, and hence, as constraint, can be felt as much 
in matters of prudence as in matters of virtue. The only 
difference is that duty expresses the constraint of the desires 
that are not morally indifferent in their nature. It is thus not 
opposed to interest of every kind, but may coincide with the 
interest of the highest kind, or with an end which may concern 
us as an interest if we would only see it so. 

In its relation to the will, therefore, conscience is like desire 
of the conscious sort. It affords motivation and can differ from 
it only in the quality which it expresses and the right of superi- 
ority. It is simply a desire with the notion of reflection and 
control added to it in the interest of harmonious development, and 
the realization of an end higher than mere instinct or that which 
the love of unregulated pleasure might produce. The opposition 
exists only where the contrast between conscience and desire is 
denned to be that between irrational impulses and the conscious 
pursuit of ends under the sense of duty, and where desire is sup- 
posed to express organic and natural cravings as opposed to the 
constraint which controls them. But where desire expresses a 
conscious and developed inclination, an inclination reinforced 
and more or less rationalized by experience, as the desire of 
power for the sake of benefiting the public, or the desire of 
knowledge for the sake of personal usefulness, there is no differ- 
ence between it and conscience that is worth considering, and so 



274 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

it is often used to express the necessary antecedent of any voli- 
tion, as indicating that we could not will to realize any object 
without desiring the result, even if the volition costs the mind a 
severe struggle with some special temptation. Conscience in that 
sense is a desire, though it may be reasonable to call it more at the 
same time. But it is not opposed to desire at large ; it conflicts, 
if it conflicts at all, only with some other particular desire. This 
conclusion prepares us to discuss the authority of conscience as 
the second of its qualities or functions. 

2d. Authority. — This characteristic is known as the right to 
supremacy among the springs of conduct. It does not mean that 
the sense of duty is in fact always the strongest in man, but that 
it ought to be, or has the right to the first place in the initiation 
of volition. We must appeal to it to know what is right and 
wrong, and to make the right effective against the competition of 
sin and vice. If the reflective character of conscience and the 
high sense of duty which it expresses cannot be called into ser- 
vice, implying the social rights of all persons in the world's 
order, we are left to the prey of a lot of unregulated impulses, 
and hence we require a common arbiter of the claims presented 
in that conflict. Conscience is the only power which can assume 
this function. The right to this supremacy is secured on either 
claim as to its character. If it is simply the highest desire it 
should have authority on that ground. If it be simply a name 
for the moral as opposed to immoral desires its legitimacy is 
established on that account. If, again, it be in conflict with all 
desire and represent the rational as opposed to the irrational, it 
may be weaker than its competitor, but it has the right of 
authority. 

But in assigning conscience the attribute of supremacy and 
authority over all other influences affecting conduct we must 
not mistake its meaning. It is not an external power, which has 
the right to coerce the subject into obedience against his will, but 
is an internal source which is itself the expression of legitimacy 
and right rather than mere power. It is well to recall the origin 
of the term authority as applied to conscience in order to see 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 275 

just what value it has in the economy of morals. We found it 
a contribution of the reaction against medieval thought where 
the individual was subject to the external authority of the 
church, which regulated his life and conduct without regard to 
the scruples of his own conscience. The subject possessed no 
liberty or right of private judgment in matters of morals. They 
were determined for him by an external authority which made 
his life merely one of passive obedience. It virtually exempted 
him from all personal responsibility for his actions. But 
whether it intended to do this or not, it certainly expressed the 
claim of an external power to authorize what a man should and 
should not do. Authority was' thus the exertion of mere power 
to coerce other wills into obedience. It may have been associated 
with some legitimacy in the actual duties it imposed, but it made 
power the standard of right, denied the right of private judgment, 
and dispensed with the need of conscience everywhere except 
in the person of the head of the church. The Reformation 
reversed all this. It was the re-establishment of the rights of 
conscience and the need of an inner guide for the direction of 
each individual. But the habit of appealing to authority was 
strong enough to demand of the Protestant some equivalent of it, 
on the ground that men differed in their ideals and were 
depraved in their desires. His appeal was then made to the 
authority of revelation, with a secondary resort to conscience as 
the revelation of God in man. But when rationalism estab- 
lished its claims to recognition there was nothing left but to 
make conscience its own authority, the final court of appeal for 
the distinction between right and wrong. It was in this way 
that it became possessed of that attribute. But it is often for- 
gotten that this transfer of authority from an external to an 
internal power deprives it of all the meaning and implications 
Avhich it possessed before. Such a thing as determining the right 
apart from the consciousness of the individual upon whom it 
rests as a duty, and as coercion against the will and private 
judgment of the subject, is impossible. It makes the notion of 
authority either a mere metaphor or a synonym for legitimacy, 



276 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

which latter it in fact usually is in modern parlance. Indeed, 
outside the uses of dogmatic religion which seeks an external au- 
thority in revelation for the judgments of conscience, or for the 
rules of life, there is no need for the notion of authority at all in 
any other sense than the final court of appeal for legitimacy and 
the right of supremacy. Any attempt to impart into it its old 
meaning is simply an abandonment of the need of conscience 
and a resort to arbitrary power for the guidance of the indi- 
vidual, and this is contrary to the whole intellectual and moral 
tendencies of modern times. The authority of conscience, there- 
fore, can only mean for us that the sole guide to the right can 
be its deliverances instead of impulse, instinct, and personal 
interest. If it is a question as to what our duty is, as compared 
with the many claims made upon the will, conscience is the 
" authority," guide, or court of appeal. It is the inner source of 
legitimacy, and if man is depraved or fallible we must seek else- 
where for qualities that will avoid these defects. But if these 
qualities cannot be found, we have no resource but to rely upon 
the best authority we possess, and this is conscience. Its author- 
ity is not the right of something external to restrain, direct, and 
coerce the subject, but an inner power which consists with the 
subject's liberty and puts responsibility where it ought to rest. 

But scholasticism and many modern theologians have insisted 
that conscience is a fallible guide, and that man needs some 
infallible authority to direct his life and conduct. In the medi- 
aeval period this was found in the church, and Protestantism 
transferred it from the church to the Bible, and ration alism to 
conscience. It was everywhere assumed that fallible man 
needed an infallible guide, and hence it was sought outside of 
him. But in saying that conscience is infallible, rationalism 
simply abandoned the dogmatic doctrine that man's nature was 
wholly fallible and found in it consciousness and, conscience, to 
which it attached that attribute in response to the demand for 
such a guide to insure certitude, which was assumed to be neces- 
sary for obtaining obedience at all. By supposition a man will 
not act until he is certain that he is right or can attain his end, 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 277 

and as conscience was asserted to be fallible by one party it 
could never be absolutely assured of the correctness of its judg- 
ments and the subject could not act for fear of doing wrong. 
This was the source of appeal to the church or to the Bible as 
an unfailing instrument of certitude. But giving up all confi- 
dence in these, the rationalist could only meet the demand for 
infallibility and certitude by placing them in conscience and 
facing the difficulties created by supposing an infallible author- 
ity to be possessed by a fallible agent. 

The controversy on the subject has been hotly waged ever 
since. The religious interests have asserted the fallibility of 
conscience and supplemented it by the infallibility of an exter- 
nal authority, and the skeptic not being satisfied to accept either 
the beliefs of the theologian or the paradoxes of the rationalist 
has been content to deny the positions of both of them and to 
remain in doubt and incertitude about the whole question. 
Other writers, like Kant, flatly affirmed the infallibility of con- 
science and treated the belief to the contrary as an illusion. 
But it has not occurred to either party to test the question by 
reference to the various conceptions of conscience. This . we 
may do. 

Kant says that an erring conscience is a chimera. This view 
seems to flatly contradict such facts as the evident conscientious- 
ness of the Hindu mother and the still more evident wrong of 
her act in casting her child in the Ganges, or the case of the 
man who claims conscientiously to murder some one in the in- 
terests of the world. Men supported slavery conscientiously, and 
there is scarcely a crime which has not sought its salification at 
the bar of conscience. Kant, therefore, seems to have asserted 
what no mind of common sense can admit, namely, that action 
according to the dictates of conscience can never be wrong. 
Nothing would seem clearer in such cases than the claim that 
we need some other guide than conscience to keep us from com- 
mitting crimes under its sanction, and hence Kant's view has 
been the object of ridicule by all who have felt that approval 
and self-satisfaction obtained in this way were dangerous to mo- 



278 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

rality. But criticism of this kind against Kant wholly mistakes 
his conception of conscience and that of those who agree with 
him, and it fails to see that his doctrine either does not apply to 
such illustrations as have been mentioned, or does not mean to 
supply the desideratum which is demanded in order to secure 
coincidence between conscientiousness and good conduct. Now, 
Kant's view of conscience did not include iutellectual and moral 
judgment in it. Its sole contents were the " categorical impera- 
tive " or the sense of duty, and morality did not extend beyond 
the good-will. His conception of morality did not contain re- 
sponsibility for the character of any results outside of the inten- 
tion of the subject. It consisted only in the right motive. Any 
man who acted according to this did his full duty. Morality 
aims, Kant held, in entire consonance with the traditional prin- 
ciple of Christianity, at the regeneration of the will, and all that 
is needed for this is action according to the categorical impera- 
tive, which an ignorant man can do as well as the wise man. 
He was good, and did all that the moral law could demand of 
him, who obeyed the sense of duty whatever the consequences. 
We may not agree that this is the wholly correct view of the 
case, but .if it be advanced we can judge of it only according to 
the standard of consistency, and Kant was perfectly consistent 
in asserting infallibility of conscience and limiting morality to 
motives. He may be wrong, both in his conception of morality 
and in "supposing that infallibility is the correct description of a 
function whose sole character is emotional, but he cannot be im- 
peached from the standpoint of a different conception of morality 
and of conscience. Hence he could say of the Hindu mother 
that she was quite as moral as one whose affection for her child 
made her revolt against taking its life ; that the man who com- 
mitted murder conscientiously was as good morally as the' man 
who respected human life. Where morality is merely a matter 
of good-will or intentions the consequences are irrelevant to the 
case. Of course, so blank a statement will only reveal the de- 
fects of a doctrine which does so much violence to the common 
notion of morality, but it cannot be charged with inconsistency. 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 279 

In Kant's view, conscience was purely an emotional function and 
was not intended to sanctify anything but the will or intention 
which it expressed, and hence the very definition of it, as the 
highest desire, or the power superior to desire, the name for the 
goodness of the mind's impulses, made it necessarily inerrant, if 
we may use that term. All action, subjectively considered, must 
be good, which conscience expresses or motivates. We can 
invariably trust it for being right as compared with non- 
conscientious motives, though the only righteousness which it 
covers is that of character. 

But it is pertinent to remark that the term " infallibility " is 
not the proper one to describe an emotional function. It can 
describe nothing but an unfailingly correct connection between 
ideas and things. Thus my perception would be infallible if 
every time that it had a sensation of color it was correct as to 
the character of the substance from which it came. Again, I 
should be infallible if judgment as to the morrow's weather coin- 
cided with the fact of it when it came. A machine is infallible 
in the sense that it acts without variableness or shadow of turn- 
ing. But the term is applied in this case probably only as a 
metaphor. It properly implies the correctness of judgment 
regarding the occurrence of events or the existence of facts 
beyond the production of the subject. Hence fallibility or 
infallibility can properly apply only to intellectual functions, 
and not to emotional, which are either mere reflexes of con- 
sciousness or are expressions of the character of the will. What 
is intended by Kant in describing conscience as infallible may 
be admitted, and this is the absolute reliance we can place upon 
it for satisfying the demands of the moral law, subjectively 
considered, namely, that we always act conscientiously, and that 
no other action can have moral character apart from its con- 
sequences. Or, put in another form, no agent can be moral who 
does not respect the law of conscientiousness, good- will, or the 
categorical imperative. Conscience may always be right in 
this sense and so be entitled to unfailing reliance as a guide 
to internal righteousness. But infallibility can be applied to 



280 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

it only by sufferance and on condition that it does not mean 
what it denotes when applied to judgment. 

But the very revolt of the mind against Kant's paradox is tes- 
timony to the fact that the general conception of conscience is 
broader than his and includes intellectual functions as well as 
emotional. The common notion of morality, as we have seen in 
analyzing it, includes both motives and consequences, subjective 
and objective elements, and makes it necessary to secure perfect 
uniformity of connection between the one and the other in order 
that any claim to infallibility may be sustained. But wherever 
intellectual functions are involved it is known that the mind is 
exposed to error both from illusions of perception and falla- 
cies of reasoning, so that conscience, if it contains cognitive ele- 
ments, must be exposed to error. As we have defined it, con- 
science contains just, those elements which expose it to error 
and which are the elements most directly connected or concerned 
with objective facts. To be objectively correct in our conduct, 
to attain the good or results which constitute the goodness of the 
external order of the world, the conditions most conservative of 
human welfare and development, intellectual and moral judg- 
ment is required, which is quite distinct in its nature and quali- 
fications from the sense of duty and good- will. It is liable to 
error, and must make that fallible of which it is a part. Hence 
wherever conscience is conceived as intellectual, or as containing 
intellectual elements, it must be admitted to be fallible. 

But the criticism of this conclusion will always be that we 
cannot safely follow a guide which is so liable to error, and 
hence must require some infallible authority to secure correct 
conduct. All that it is necessary to say in reply to this claim 
is that it is not true. There is a natural temptation to make this 
claim, but it is one which is made nowhere except in speculative 
philosophy. Conscience is fallible, but it may be the only guide 
we have, and if it be not followed we must either be inert 
or without any qualities of virtue at all. If we cannot secure 
an infallible authority in a revelation or some qualified agents 
deputed for the purpose, we must be content to accept such 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 281 

guidance as we have, whether fallible or infallible. Moreover, we 
do not demand infallibility of judgment in any other affairs of 
life and yet we act as promptly as we should with it, accepting 
the consequences of error and generally attaining a reasonable 
amount of success. We transact business and undertake all the 
various risks of life and yet never ask to have an infallible 
judgment before acting. Experience shows us that we are often 
enough correct to enable us to follow securely such guidance as 
we have, and though this may be fallible, action is not paralyzed 
by it. It is the same with conscience. It might be a great 
advantage to have its judgments free from error, so far as objec- 
tive consequences beyond the ken of knowledge are concerned, 
but since its responsibilities do not extend beyond good-will and 
such consequences as experience reveals, it is not hindered from 
being a safe guide. Infallibility is not required in order either 
to insure action or to secure the first object of moral law, which 
is good- will or personal righteousness Obedience to the emo- 
tional dictates of conscience attains this, and we may leave to 
insight, education, and experience the task of strengthening the 
judgment against error, responsibility for character being ful- 
filled by obedience to the moral law whatever the consequences 
beyond the ken of knowledge. Hence, while admitting the falli- 
bility of conscience in its intellectual resources, we may insist 
upon the inviolability of its emotional functions. In fact, this is 
the quality we should properly attribute to it rather than in- 
fallibility. This last is neither true nor necessary, while invio- 
lability is both, and expresses the impossibility of satisfying the 
claims of virtue until conscience as a categorical imperative 
is accepted and obeyed. We may without it do what is right in 
the same sense that a machine or an animal, or a merely prudent 
man, may do that which is objectively good, affecting the condi- 
tions of life ; but it will not be morality of the highest sort, and 
in the subjective sense it will not be morality at all. Hence in 
the effort to attain virtue as an expression of the agent's moral 
character, conscience must be inviolable and its authority h\ 
that sense accepted beyond question. Had moralists presented 



282 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

this as its quality rather than infallibility there would have been 
less dispute about its nature and relation to morality. It is 
necessary only to insist upon its supremacy in order to secure it 
the proper place in the direction of life, and we can then dismiss 
the question of its fallibility or infallibility as not being relevant 
to the issue. Supremacy and inviolability secure the quality that 
entitles it to the first place among the motives to conduct, and 
that is all that we should require of it. The next function of 
conscience which follows from this is moralization. 

3d. Moralization — What is meant by this function of con- 
science has practically been indicated in the discussion immediately 
preceding. The only object in asserting the authority of conscience 
is to give the source from which truly moral conduct must come. 
Objective morality is, of course, not concerned with it except as 
experience and knowledge may extend the range of respon- 
sibility. But subjective morality is conditioned by the presence 
and exercise of conscience as the sense of right or of those 
characteristics supposed to determine the good-will. No agent 
can be moral without it. Not only can conscience serve to mo- 
tivate volition as a competitor of other impulses, but it deter- 
miues the quality of that volition. In other words, it moralizes 
conduct within the limits of knowledge and of the will. The 
individual who respects it reaches the highest degree of personal 
worth possible for him. He may be defective in the knowledge 
of circumstances and thus commit many grave errors. But he 
deserves all the credit of a good will and intentions, so that if 
anything be wanted to improve his conduct it must be supplied 
by education of the intellect and not by discipline of the will. It 
is the character of law and a fixed rule of action which it gives, 
while it enables us to place more reliance upon the person who 
possesses it. It is the principle which will make sacrifices for social 
order and resist the undue influences and temptations of envi- 
ronment to pursue self-interest, and in every way insures the 
highest ideals, so that wherever there are varied conditions to 
take account of, there must be either the constraint of duty or 
the reverence for a moral ideal in order to give conduct that 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 283 

moral quality which Ethics seeks to explain and to encourage. 
Conscience is thus the primary condition of moralizing man, 
partly as the repository of principles which may counteract the 
influence of bad instincts and desires, and partly as the source 
of moral ideals that sanctify the will whether it is exposed to 
temptation or not. It is the conscientious man that approaches 
perfection, or serves as a personal embodiment" of virtue, con- 
science being the faculty which conditions and moralizes the 
character of his life as ideal and divine. In other words, it is 
the transfiguring force in conduct, and determines all that is 
described by ethical merit. 

References. — Mackenzie : Manual of Ethics, pp. 52-57 ; Muirhead : 
Elements of Ethics, pp. 70-78; Alexander: Moral Order and Progress, 
pp. 156-160 ; Fowler and Wilson : Principles of Morals, Vol. II., pp. 180- 
224, 274-285 ; Martineau : Study of Keligion, Vol. II., Book II., Chap- 
ter II., Section 3 ; Seat of Authority in Eeligion, pp. 76-79 ; Calderwood : 
Handbook of Moral Philosophy, pp. 64-91 (Fourteenth Edition); Maurice : 
On Conscience ; Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, Chapter VIIL, pp. 
311-352 ; Barratt : Physical Ethics, Part II., Chapter I., Section 1 ; Mar- 
tensen : Christian Ethics, Vol. I., pp. 356-368 ; Smyth, Christian Ethics, 
Pait II., Chapter I., pp. 293-326 ; Bain : Emotions and the Will ; The 
Emotions, Chapter XV., pp. 268-293; Porter: Elements of Moral Science, 
pp. 243-259. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE OEIGIN OF CONSCIENCE. 

I. INTRODUCTORY. — From the earliest period of philosophic 
reflection the question how we came to have moral ideas has 
been a disputed one. We found in the history of ethical prob- 
lems that they were first referred to the gods and then to con- 
vention and afterward to reason. In modern times the theory 
of evolution took up the question with a new method and has 
almost absorbed ethical speculation in the enthusiasm of its 
method and discoveries. It has been usual since its introduction 
to try to determine the nature of cod science from its origin. 
But apart from the equivocal import of the term origin, which 
we shall note again, it is most important to keep in mind that 
the proper order of procedure is first to determine its nature and 
then to discuss its origin. If men could only be brought to see 
it, they would acknowledge that it is essentially absurd to inves- 
tigate the origin of anything until they have decided its nature. 
It is probably assumed -by most persons that the conception ox 
conscience is clear and well understood. If this were so we 
might well proceed to discuss its origin. But the previous chap- 
ter shows very clearly that this assumption is an illusion and 
that every theory of its origin must take account of a very com- 
plex set of phenomena. We require, therefore, first to know 
exactly what it is whose origin we are seeking. Having deter- 
mined that, we can proceed to the problem of evolution. 

The method of procedure to be here adopted will involve a 
clear conception of the theories regarding the origin of conscience 
and a criticism of some current forms of evolution, which will 
be followed by an analysis of the proper conception of evolution. 
We shall first classify the theories regarding the way man came 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 285 

to have such a faculty. We shall not distinguish at first the 
transcendental from the phenomenal use of the term, but shall 
find before reaching our conclusion that one set of theories 
applies to the former and the other to the latter conception of it. 
Let us see in how many ways the problem may be viewed. 

II. CLASSIFICATION OF THEORIES.— There have been two 

* 

general theories in regard to the origin or existence of conscience. 
One of them is called Nativism and the other Empiricism. The 
former opposes the latter as natural opposes acquired. The full 
meaning of each theory will be brought out by farther definition 
and analysis. 

1st. Nativism. — In its broad sense this theory regards con- 
science as a natural endowment of man. It does not wholly ex- 
clude the idea that it had an origin, but it does not admit that it 
has originated by human experience. It holds that it is as old, 
or coeval with the creation of the individual ; that it is as much a 
natural part of his constitution, organic or mental, as is his rea- 
son, his memory, or his emotions, although it may not give clear 
evidence of its existence until long after other faculties have 
manifested themselves. But it takes three forms — Theism, 
Naturalism, and Intuitionalism. 

1. Theism. — This is the theory which holds that conscience 
has a divine origin, that it is divinely created. It is nativistic 
in holding that it is a part of man's nature as a whole, and is not 
produced by his experience. But it opposes every supposition 
that it is either eternal or a necessary part of intelligence or con- 
sciousness as such. It conceives that beings might exist without 
conscience. In fact, it originated with a view to explaining the 
difference between man and animals. Animals were admitted to 
have at least a certain measure of intelligence, and to that ex- 
tent could not be distinguished in their nature from man. It was 
also apparent that man's moral nature presented a most striking 
difference between him and lower orders of existence. The re- 
ligious mind everywhere seized upon the fact to prove that this 
additional factor in man could not have had what is called a 
natural, as opposed to a supernatural, origin, and hence made 



286 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

this new and distinguishing quality a divinely implanted power. 
This view antagonized both the doctrine of conventionalism, as 
expounded by the Sophists, and the theory that it was a contin- 
gent product of experience in pleasure and pain. One of its 
main objects was to give a religious meaning to conscience, and 
to sustain the supernatural at the point where the character of 
the divine showed its highest degree of idealization. But it was 
also concerned to show that there .was a divinely implanted 
power in man which makes all persons responsible for their 
conduct, while empiricism was supposed to be inconsistent 
with that idea, on the ground that experience was not the 
same in all individuals, and so could not give rise to the 
same capacity. 

2. Naturalism. — By this theory we mean simply that con- 
science is a strictly natural, as opposed to a supernatural, endow- 
ment of man. It regards the faculty as original, but does not 
accord it any particular derivation different from other faculties. 
It is not inconsistent with theism in all its aspects, but only in the 
one respect, that it does not appeal to miracles to explain con- 
science, unless it appeals to them to account for everything, which 
is in effect the abandonment of the supernatural altogether. This 
doctrine has not been widely held. It merely represents the atti- 
tude of mind which would not agree with empiricism, on the one 
hand, nor accept the miraculous or occasional interference of 
deity in the course of things, on the other. 

3. Intuitionalism. — This theory is consistent with both of 
the others, and is only opposed to empiricism. Its fundamental 
characteristic is that moral ideas are known directly and immedi- 
ately, and not by the slow and precarious process of experience. 
It is important to remark, however, that it does not concern con- 
science transcendentally ; that is, as a capacity, but 'phenomenally ; 
that is, as actual conceptions. It may assume either the theistic 
or the naturalistic point of view in regard to conscience as an en- 
dowment, but in regard to the ideas of right and wrong, it asserts 
that they are universal elements of rational consciousness, and can 
be immediately known and perceived by all persons possessing it. 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 287 

The theory takes two different forms, which I shall call General 
Intuitionalism and Particular Intuitionalism. 

(a) General Intuitionalism. — This view holds that the only 
element of moral consciousness which is immediately and uni- 
versally known is the mere distinction between right and w T rong ; 
that is, the consciousness of moral imperatives, or the general and 
abstract conception of morality. Not that we are originally con- 
scious that this conception is abstract and general, but only of 
an idea which is general and abstract. We must not misunder- 
stand the theory at the outset. It pretends only to assert an 
original basis upon which experience may work, and it finds 
moral conceptions not only so universal, but appearing so early 
in the life of the individual that it would account for them by 
supposing an intuitive tendency of consciousness to make the dis- 
tinction between right and wrong too early for experience to 
account for it. 

(6) Particular Intuitionalism. — This theory goes farther, and 
maintains that man can intuitively know what particular acts 
are right or wrong, agree or disagree with the standard of 
morality. That is, it asserts not only that he has a natural 
knowledge of moral distinctions in general, the moral as distin- 
guished from the true or the beautiful, but that he has the same 
knowledge of the character of the particular virtues and vices, 
namely, murder, theft, adultery, honesty, charity, veracity, respect 
for human life, justice, benevolence, etc. This practically leaves 
no room for the influence of experience in any form, and is the 
most exaggerated form of nativism that is possible. 

2cL Empiricism. — This theory is based upon experience. 
The name is taken from the Greek term i}i7teipia, w r hich 
means experience. But we must remark the ambiguity of the 
term in modern usage. First, it means the realization in con- 
sciousness of any fact whatever, as to have a sensation, to feel a 
pain, to suffer an accident, to perceive an object, or to have any 
mental state or occurrence whatever. The second meaning is 
quite different from the first. It denotes a series of events in 
consciousness, with an increment at the end which was not 



288 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

found in the beginning. This was the old Greek meaning of 
the term. It implied repetition with the conception of a result 
when looking at the whole which would not be suggested by the 
first incident realized. The two conceptions, therefore, are, first, 
of isolated individual events, and second, of a collective series of 
events in consciousness, the former having the whole contents of 
the thing derived in each event, and the latter with an incre- 
ment not contained in the original element of the series. The 
latter is the only meaning that can oppose the theory to Intui- 
tionalism or Nativism. Hence empiricism as a theory denotes 
the derivation of ideas and powers from elements each of which 
do not contain the product as a whole. It is even conceived as 
denoting the origin of something from that which does not con- 
tain it, which is a bolder form of statement than the one we 
have given. But usually it is defined as the theory which de- 
rives conscience and all our abstract conceptions from experi- 
ence or by experience. Thus our conception of the sin of lying, 
of cheating, of murder, of stealing, of cruelty, or of the virtues 
of honesty, of justice, of truthfulness, etc., is not known by the 
individual until he has been educated to it in some way either 
by the influence of social discipline or by the more formal pro- 
cess of instruction. He requires gradually to learn their char- 
acter and relation to social welfare. This experience, however, 
has been supposed to be of two kinds, the experience of the 
individual and the experience of the race. This gives rise to 
two distinct forms of the theory, which we shall call Experien- 
tialism and Evolutionism. 

1. Expeeientialism. — This theory limits the development 
of conscience to the experience of the individual who has moral 
capacity, the experience of others not being supposed to count 
for anything in his endowments. The individual man as we 
know him is supposed to start in life perfectly indifferent to 
moral distinctions and with no inherent moral conceptions what- 
ever and no tendency whatever to appreciate them, but must 
learn them by contact with social life and by the various forms 
of education. It is to be remarked, however, that historically 



THE ORIGIN OF COXSCIEXCE 289 

this theory has been almost wholly confined' to the phenomenal 
conception of conscience. It has not discussed the question of 
capacities in any metaphysical sense, but only the existence of 
positive moral ideas. Hence it is supposed to explain the 
origin of conceptions, not of faculties. 

2. Evolutionism. — This theory holds that conscience is the 
result of a process of development, but does not limit the process 
to the life or experience of the individual. It extends this ex- 
perience to the race. It admits that conscience is native or an 
inborn capacity in the rational man of to-day, but holds that it 
was not true of the earliest ancestors from whom the present 
generations have descended. It supposes that earlier individ- 
uals accumulated a certain amount of experience and moral 
knowledge, the result of which as a habit or acquired capacity 
was handed down by inhemtance to the successors of that indi- 
vidual. "What was due to direct experience in the ancestor was 
an inherited capacity by posterity and so is natural in the latter 
rather than acquired. Experience again added to this endowment 
and was handed on in the shape of higher powers in the next 
generation. Natural selection was added to this influence to 
eliminate those who did not acquire or possess the desideratum 
of conscience and to secure the survival of those who did possess 
a qualification so necessary to the social organism. The gradual 
selection ofathe best developed individuals of the species secured 
the fixity of conscience in the race and multiplied the tenden- 
cies to development in the direction of perfecting moral con- 
sciousness. It therefore hastened the attainment of the existing 
condition of things. 

It should be remarked in this theory, however, that it 
accounts for more than the origin of the specific moral ideas 
which the experience of the individual determines. It also 
undertakes to account for conscience as a capacity,, and there- 
fore explains its genesis in the transcendental sense. It uses 
the result of experience as not being wholly lost w T ith the 
death of the individual, but passed on as an inherited ten- 
dency to subsequent generations, appearing there as natural 



290 



ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 



when it was purely an acquired habit in the ancestors. Indi- 
vidual experience in this theory counts for nothing except the 
subject's habits, which appear as predispositions in the next and 
following generation, where it represents capacity of a certain 
degree, more easily developed and with the momentum of that 
from which it came. Hence while the theory admits the native 
character of conscience in the rational man of to-day, experience 
is yet the basis of it, being distributed over an indefinite period 
of time and beginning with individuals that possess no traces of 
the faculty, representing as it does now the accumulated re- 
sults of so many generations. 

The following table will summarize the classification of the 
theories on the origin of conscience, as they have already been 
defined. They are not all of them mutually exclusive in all their 
aspects. They oppose each other only in certain particulars. 

f Theism 



Nativism 



Empiricism 



Naturalism 
Intuitionalism 
Experientialism 
Evolutionism 



f General 
X Particular 
f General 
X Particular 



III. EXAMINATION OF NATIVISTIC THEORIES— -The three 
theories grouped under this general heading have both their 
merits and demerits. As already remarked, they are not mutu- 
ally exclusive in all of their characteristics and associations, 
but have represented merely slight differences of points of view 
in the development of ethical speculation, each one being de- 
signed to effect a certain purpose in the age in which it arose. 
Some of them may be dismissed very briefly. 

1st. The Theistic Theory. — This theory had its use in the 
controversy with Greek philosophy and received a new impetus 
in the controversy with evolution. It was designed to sustain 
and vindicate the supernatural in the order of the world, and to 
establish a basis of divine authority for morals. Greek philoso- 
phy endeavored to explain all phenomena^ both of the natural 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 291 

and the moral order, without an appeal to a personal deity as 
understood by the early Christians, and the consequence was 
that the distinction between man and animals was not drawn in 
the interest of a doctrine which ascribed an immortal soul to one 
and denied it of the other. But the manifest difference of moral 
capacity between them offered an opportunity both to seek an 
explanation outside the natural order for so peculiar a phenom- 
enon and to prove the personal character of the being from 
whom man's moral nature originated, while at the same time 
establishing a principle of authority which was presumably a 
necessity for social order. We shall briefly summarize the char- 
acteristics which were involved in the position thus taken and 
their relation to the wants of ethical theory. These will include 
both the merits and defects of the doctrine. 

1. The theory of theism proves both too much and too little. 
In maintaining that conscience must have a divine origin on the 
ground that there are no traces of it in the lower order of nature, 
the theist must hold either that this nature is not a creation of 
the divine, or that if it is so created there is no ethical advantage 
in the theory. To admit the existence of everything else without 
the interposition of the supernatural is to create a strong pre- 
sumption against an exception and in favor of further attempts 
to reduce the phenomenon to the natural order. If all but one 
event in the world's history be natural, it will require some 
hardihood to demand an exception to the law of parsimony, 
which requires as few causes as possible for the explanation of 
thiugs, and ultimately but one of them to accord with the unity 
of the world. Hence the supernatural theory of conscience must 
be at the expense of the divine elsewhere in the economy of the 
world, unless we make everything supernatural and due to the 
same cause. On the other hand, to make everything supernatu- 
ral and divine is to eliminate the whole effect of the supposed 
authority of conscience by giving the natural equal weight and 
importance in the order of things with the divine. This is 
not a refutation . of theism, but only a statement to show that 
it does not solve the problem as scientific ethics would have 



292 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

it solved. Ultimately we must trace all phenomena to the same 
cause to account for their existence and with them that of con- 
science. But it is not the explanation of the existence or genesis 
of conscience that gives it its validity and authority. These 
qualities must be derived from what it is, not from the manner 
of its origin. Theism pretends only to explain how man ob- 
tained a moral nature, and not the derivation of its character 
and supremacy. Hence it does not effect what is demanded of a 
theory, though it may be true. 

2. A second difficulty of the theistic doctrine of the origin of 
conscience is that it shifts the whole problem over to theology. 
Theism must assume the existence of God as given in order to 
refer conscience to His creative power. If it does not assume 
this fact, either it must surrender the right to use the principle 
for the purposes of explanation, for the reason that we cannot 
rationally resort to causes whose existence is not yet admitted, 
or it must shift the controversy over to the theological question 
of God's existence, and this would make all ethics wait upon the 
issues of theology, which seem less near a solution than ethics, 
and would discourage the attempt to get a practical basis for 
the authority of conscience until the skeptic could be converted 
to theology. On the other hand, if the theist means only that 
conscience is the revelation of God's existence and character, it 
is to be remarked that whatever relation God must sustain to 
conscience as creator, this faculty must first be accepted and its 
authority granted before its testimony can be admitted, and this 
is to make its value independent of every question of its origin. 
In any case, therefore, the theistic theory, whether true or not, 
is irrelevant to the issue raised by ethics, which is the ground of 
morality rather than the origin of the function of it. 

3. In spite of the conclusion just announced the question of 
genesis comes up in ethical speculation. But it is the genesis of 
the mental phenomena which are the expression of conscience 
rather than the faculty of them. Now, the utmost that the 
theistic theory has ever claimed to do was to explain the crea- 
tion of conscience in the transcendental sense; it has not in- 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 293 

tended to explain conscience i^henomenally ; that is, to assign 
the cause or causes of the particular phenomena, cognitive, leg- 
islative, and judicial, whose domination of life has given them 
together the name of conscience. It has gone no further than 
to explain how man can possess this qualification when it is sup- 
posed that animal existence is without it and without the germs 
of it. But the real problem of ethics is the influences which 
have given rise to the persistency and predominance of moral 
consciousness in the economy of rational life, and these can be 
sought, though they may be secondary causes, without either 
assuming or denying theism. A direct appeal to a supernatural 
origin for them as mental states would prove more than theism 
either desires or needs to prove. It is the condition or condi- 
tions of conscience as a phenomenon that scientific ethics seeks 
to establish. Theism has not aimed to do this, but it does not 
conflict with this object and hence will be irrelevant to the real 
issue.* 

4. A fact which has done much to invite opposition to the 
theistic theory has been its association with the attempt to estab- 

* If it be said that theism is in conflict with evolution on the ground 
that both theories aim.' to explain the origin of conscience in the tran- 
scendental sense it can be replied that this will depend wholly upon the 
retention and the legitimacy of the distinction between the natural and 
the supernatural. Theism is supposed to depend wholly upon the super- 
natural and evolution upon the natural. But for philosophic purposes I 
must deny the legitimacy of the distinction unless it is made to coincide 
with that between subject and phenomena, in which there is no conflict, 
but only a difference. Moreover, apart from this no distinction can be 
assigned between them that has any importance for the philosophic ques- 
tion, because in explaining the origin of anything the " natural" can only 
be the continuous or regular action of that which the notion of the "super- 
natural" makes only occasional. The nature of the force must be the 
same. Hence in refusing to recognize any distinction of character be- 
tween the " natural " and " supernatural " we simply indicate that theism 
and evolution may either be two sides of the same shield or one is only a 
doctrine of creatio occasionalis and the other of creatio continua. This dis- 
tinction may be an interesting one, but it has no importance for ethics be- 
cause the nature of the agency in both cases must be the same. It is only 
a question of its law. 



294 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

lish an external authority for the deliverances of conscience. 
This view might satisfy an age when individual liberty and the 
right of private judgment were denied, but whenever these came 
to be affirmed the philosophic aspects of the theory would natu- 
rally pay the penalty of its practical weakness. Hence since 
the Protestant Reformation the importance of the theory has 
diminished everywhere except under conditions in which the 
value of external authority was still retained as a counter- 
agent to the irresponsibilities of ignorance and impulse. The 
general revolt against the principle of authority has carried 
with it a marked diminution in the power and influence of the 
theistic theory, while showing also that ethics is less interested 
in the origin than the character of conscience. 

5. There is another fact of some interest. Whatever criti- 
cisms may be made against certain features of theism it has 
the very great merit of being associated usually with very high 
ideals of duty and of God. In fact the theory has done much 
to idealize either our conception of conscience or our conception 
of God. Some would say that the moral nature of God is only 
a reflection of the particular age that placed a high value upon 
conscience, God being given no other character than power as 
long as the idea of authority prevailed. Others would say that 
conscience derived its ideal and moral character from the divine 
agent who created it.* But without dwelling on the differences 
between these two modes of thought it remains true that the 
theory has the merit of being associated with that sense of the 
idealization and sanctity of conscience which gave it more 
power in the economy of individual life than if it had been re- 
duced to the lower level of irrational desires. 

2d. Naturalism. — This theory has many of the defects of the 

* There is no necessary contradiction between these two points of 
view. The character of conscience may be the evidence (ratio cogno- 
scendi) of God's nature, while God's nature may be the cause (ratio fiendi) 
of the character of conscience. Hence the morality of conscience may be 
the means of our knowing what God is, while he may be the cause of what 
conscience is in its character. 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 295 

theistic view. Indeed it is only the obverse side of the same doc- 
trine and provokes the same controversies, while it is perhaps 
quite as irrelevant to the real issues of ethics. It has also the 
obverse merit of theism. It has been more distinctly associated 
with the idea of individual liberty, responsibility, and the right 
of private judgment, and so with the notion of only an internal 
authority over conduct. 

3d. Intuitionalism. — As has already been stated this theory 
concerns the origin of moral ideas rather than the origin of 
moral faculty. It is therefore wholly unrelated to the transcen- 
dental conception of conscience. But its meaning is not clear in 
its application to the phenomenal conception. It is generally 
supposed to be opposed to every form of empiricism. But this 
assumption will hardly bear investigation, as the equivocations of 
the term will show. It is true that in some of its meanings it is 
opposed to the empirical theory, but not in all of them. Hence 
before discussing the theory directly, we should clearly understand 
the various meanings of the term. 

1. Meaning of the Teem Intuition. — There are at least 
three distinct significations of this term bearing upon the contro- 
versy at hand. They are (<x) immediate cognition, (6) necessary 
cognition, and (c) universal cognition. The first of these de- 
notes simply directness of perception, or direct consciousness of a 
fact without the accompaniment of repeated experiences to prove 
or confirm an impression. Thus I intuitively perceive my sensa- 
tions in the sense that I do not need to repeat an experiment 
with them in order to know that they are mine. Again, I intu- 
itively perceive that two and two make four in the sense that 
when I do perceive or suspect the fact at all, I do not require to 
have the phenomenon repeated over and over again in order to 
be convinced of its truth. In this sense of the term, it is 
identical with the first meaning of "experience," which is 
realization in consciousness as a fact of consciousness. This 
conception of it has no implications whatever about the time in 
the life of the individual when the act of perception may occur, 
nor does it involve any theory about the way the intuitive power 



296 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

came into existence. It may be natural or acquired. In either 
case its function is supposed to be one of immediate insight 
when it acts. 

The second meaning of the term implies that an intuitive truth 
must necessarily be known or assumed by all rational beings. 
Hence to assert that right and wrong are necessary cognitions 
means that they must be known by every being who is sane 
at all, and that we should have to eliminate the reason or con- 
sciousness of such beings in order to expel their knowledge 
of moral conceptions or their capacity for them. 

The third meaning of the term is that intuitive truths are 
cognized as a fact by all rational beings. It does not involve the 
necessity of such knowledge, but only the fact that it is 
universal. It is taken to imply that the capacity for such per- 
ception is an inborn function of the subject. Thus intuitive 
moral perceptions would be the universal recognition of the 
character of murder, theft, disobedience of conscience, ingrati- 
tude, cruelty, etc., or the possession of general moral ideas, a sense 
of right and wrong somewhere, if only of the most primitive kind, 
as resistance to injury, love of parents, etc. They are called 
intuitive because all men are supposed to be able to have such 
knowledge. 

Now, intuitionalism, as a theory of conscience or of moral ideas, 
implies the simultaneous possession of all three forms of cognition as 
necessary to its purposes, namely, that moral distinctions, either 
general or particular, must be immediate, universal, and neces- 
sary. It is a peculiarity of mental processes that they may 
be immediate without being either universal or necessary, 
and necessary without being immediate and universal without 
being either immediate or necessary. If they are necessary, how- 
ever, they must be universal. All this will be apparent to the 
most superficial. But the test of an intuitive truth has 
been that it should have all three qualifications. The impor- 
tance of this to the theory will be evident from the object 
of the theory itself. 

2. The Object or Motive of Intuitionalism ,— The funda- 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 297 

mental object of this theory, without which the doctrine would 
never have been proposed, was to supply a basis for universal re- 
sponsibility. We have already seen that at least the capacity 
for moral distinctions is necessary before any degree of responsi- 
bility whatever can be admitted, and that the actual consciousness 
of the distinction will affect the degree of responsibility, and that 
a man is exempt from punishment or discipline in proportion to 
the absence of the actual consciousness of wrong in his conduct. 
In order, therefore, to justify the application of responsibility to 
all persons alike, it had to be assumed that they were capable of 
moral conceptions. Conscience had thus to be made universal 
and necessary as a condition of amenability to rewards and punish- 
ment. It was therefore only natural to make its actual knowl- 
edge all that could be attributed to inherent and inborn 
capacities ; namely, intuitive, universal, and necessary cognition. 
Otherwise morality and responsibility would have to be sacrificed 
to the same extent to which these qualities were sacrificed, and as 
the age which originated the doctrine was very strict in its 
application of equal responsibility, its theory was very stanchly 
defended, and for the sake of social order men were very chary 
about admitting any limitations to it. This is the secret of the 
strong antagonism to empiricism which breaks down the very 
principle of universal responsibility and can admit it only where 
conscience happens to have been developed. In the light, there- 
fore, both of this fact and the definition of the term we may 
examine the two theories. 

3. General Intuitionalism. — As defined this theory holds 
that the principle of moral distinctions is known before the full 
measure of its application to particular acts is known and even 
conditions the possibility of such an application. For instance, 
in order to know that a particular act is murder the subject 
must know what murder is, .and to know the sin of murder he 
must know how it affects the welfare of others. To know that 
stealing is wrong he must have a notion of the sacredness of prop- 
erty, and this he will obtain from the native sense of possession 
or right to one's own product and labor. In short,' to judge of 



298 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the character of any particular act whatever, the individual 
must have a prior conception of that which determines its 
character, and the particular act must be that which determines 
the nature of other events which are causally connected with it. 
Now, the difficulty of proving that men have any such prior 
consciousness of the ultimate principle of right and wrong 
grows out of two facts : (a) the possibility that some one of the 
three necessary qualifications of intuitive truth may be wanting, 
and (b) the fact that the doctrine of intuitionalism has not 
always made it clear whether by intuitive ideas it meant implicit 
or explicit knowledge ; that is, consciousness of a fact which is 
moral, or the consciousness that it is moral. 

(a) In regard to the first of these difficulties it is easy to 
indicate so many differences of opinion respecting morality 
among men, and so many cases where the very conception of 
morality as accepted by rational men is or seems to be wanting, 
that the universality and therefore the necessity of moral dis- 
tinctions would seem to be justifiably denied. Savages do not 
revolt against cruelty, chastity seems not to be known in some 
stages of culture, lying is a qualification to be cultivated by 
some people, and actions generally are only the pursuit of per- 
sonal interest in which it is supposed that morality is not latent. 
These and thousands of similar illustrations might be adduced to 
show that there is no single conception of morality common to 
mankind and that the sense of duty, the fundamental character- 
istic of conscience, is wanting. 

The first reply to this argument would be that it is not 
necessary for the intuitive character of moral principles that 
they everywhere take the same concrete form ; cruelty, un- 
chastity, and injustice might be very common, not from the 
lack of any conception of right and wrong, but only from the 
lack of perceiving that certain known ideas are applicable to 
the case at hand. The germ of morality may be recognized in 
some case, but not its application to another. For instance, 
regard for the welfare of the tribe may be known and appre- 
ciated, and yet neither chastity nor justice may be recognized 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 299 

toward those not in the tribe. Indeed, there are instances where 
even chastity is respected within certain limits and not in others. 
This is even true in modern times. A man may insist upon the 
chastity of his own household, and yet not regard it himself in 
the person of others. This is a contradiction, but it does not 
disprove his consciousness of moral distinctions. It only shows 
that he is not consistent in the application of them. A man 
may know and respect a thing which has the qualities — that is, 
the intension — of morality, but neither recognize them as such 
nor their application to other concrete cases ; that is, their exten- 
sion. A man may feel a constraint to defend the tribe, his 
family, or the state, and yet not perceive that this duty, with its 
implied respect for the individuals of the family or community, 
involves a great many other virtues. It is this extension of a 
given law to particular cases which has to be learned by experi- 
ence, but this fact does not involve the use of experience for the 
principle itself. And it is to be remarked that some forms of 
empiricism are even based upon the assumption of a general con- 
sciousness which makes possible the development of common 
conceptions by experience. Of this more again. At present it 
suffices to note the fact as proof of the general principle of in- 
tuitionalism. 

A second fact in the same direction is that intuitionalists have 
only claimed that their doctrine applies to rational beings, in 
whom they could evidently find traces of immediate and univer- 
sal conceptions of right and wrong. But it is a manifest 
weakness of the theory that it has no criterion of rationality to 
determine where and when the line shall be drawn between 
rational and irrational members of the human race. This is to 
say that its conception of man is broader than that of rational 
man, and the empiricist might well admit the fact and use it in 
his own favor. 

A third reply to the empiricist's argument would be that all 
men do recognize the value of pleasure and the evil of pain, and 
that this is the basis of moral distinctions. This reply must 
have great force with the utilitarian, who asserts both that all 



800 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

men draw this distinction instinctively and that pleasure is the 
highest good and pain the ultimate eyil. To say that pleasure 
is the highest good implies either that it must be intuitively 
known or that utilitarianism is not true. If the goodness of 
pleasure is not a native perception, it must be acquired by ex- 
perience, which would make it improbable that all men would 
have the same idea of it, since their experience varies and the 
utilitarian principle is broken down on that side. On the other,, 
if it is not the highest good the doctrine is again abandoned. 
Hence as long as utilitarians, and empiricists, who are invariably 
utilitarians, maintain both that pleasure is universal and that it 
is the highest good, they must admit the intuitive, universal, and 
necessary character of something which conditions the applica- 
tion of their own theory of morality and the development of 
conscience. When they resolve morality into the pursuit of 
pleasure and make this an organic element of consciousness, they 
admit the whole method of intuitionalism, though they may not 
admit the object of it. 

It is a fact that intuitionalism has often made -some other end 
than pleasure the ultimate object of volition, but this is neither 
a necessary part of its method nor a universal accompaniment of 
the theory. The aesthetic school of morality admitted a moral 
sense though making its object happiness or pleasure. Happi- 
ness is not the exclusive property of the empiricist. All that 
intuitionalism ultimately requires is some such universal object 
of volition which conditions survival in order to maintain that 
the fundamental distinction of morality is innate or natural as 
opposed to what is acquired. In that case empirical morality- 
is only a more highly developed pursuit of this object, whose 
relation to the particular virtues is lost by the process of ab- 
straction which goes on in the formation of all complex ideas. 

It can be farther said, also, that a conception of moral obliga- 
tion is actually more general than the empiricists admit and 
than their theory will permit them to concede. In savage 
tribes, notably among the Indians of this continent, whose social 
life is as simple as it can well be, we often find a sense of right 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 301 

as clear and distinct as among the most highly civilized. The 
Egyptian who showed distinct signs of gratitude when his 
life was spared by his English captors, though he had never 
seen such clemency before, manifested a consciousness of nobility 
which has very great possibilities in it. The Indian's fidelity 
to his promises and the revenge he takes for the infractions 
of treaties with him, though they may show great callousness of 
heart in regard to cruelty, are proof of a clear knowledge of 
what is right in one relation. The Australian savage whose 
desire to kill was so strong that he could not walk behind a 
stranger without an almost irresistible temptation to slay him, 
and who asked to walk in front of him in order to quell the 
desire, showed as clear a seuse of right and wrong as any one 
could be expected to have. Thousands of similar illustrations 
might be chosen to the same effect. They show the existence of 
moral consciousness where it is least to be expected, though the 
instances may be so casual as to render the detection of it very 
rare and difficult. The general habits of the individual do not 
regard the distinction, and we imagine it and the capacity for it 
wholly absent, when it is merely latent and ineffective. The 
trouble with the savage may not be the absence of all ideas of 
right and wrong, but only their inefficiency among the tempta- 
tions of personal interest. But we should not deny their existence 
on the ground that they are not supreme. In fact it is the 
assumption that savages are redeemable, to some extent at least, 
and that under experience, discipline, and education they may 
learn moral habits, which justifies all efforts to accomplish this 
result. Such attempts would be very foolish if the assumption 
were not true. Development and experience assume that a 
recognized principle is given and that it is the business of these 
processes to extend, not to create, it. Hence we must not confuse 
the inefficiency of moral principles with their absence. On the 
other hand, intuitionalists require to be warned against assuming 
more than is true and more than is necessary for their method. 
They require only enough to condition a certain amount of 
responsibility, and not the equality which scholasticism taught 



302 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

and which is still the echo of intuitive doctrine. But its general 
principle is not only not opposed to some forms of empiricism, 
but is the condition of them, in that a common experience is not 
possible without a common consciousness of some kind. 

(b) In regard to the second difficulty, which was that the 
theory did not make clear always, whether the intuitive ideas 
which it claimed were implicit or explicit, it must be said that 
the fact is a source of weakness. We shall grant also that if 
intuitionalism is conditioned upon the explicit consciousness 
of morality as such, even of the most general form, it cannot be 
sustained. Experience is the only influence which can develop 
this aspect of moral consciousness. But when the theory is 
properly understood and explained, it affirms only the implicit 
consciousness of morality as ultimate and intuitive; that -is, the 
consciousness of a fact which is imperative before the consciousness 
that it is an imperative fact of a moral order. Thus the savage 
even may feel a constraint to defend the social order of his tribe, 
and it may be a moral duty to do so, though he has not yet 
formed an abstract conception of this obligation. This " uncon- 
scious " morality, as it is often called, meaning morality of the 
unreflective non-self-conscious form, is the primitive stage of all 
highly developed and conscious morality, and in fact conditions 
it. There will be found in it often all the elements of the 
mature conscience, though so distorted and misdirected as 
to make them unrecognizable. Thus the savage whose wife had 
died, and who pined away for a year or more from remorse 
at not having killed some woman according to the law of his 
tribe, and returned to his master after a year's absence, hearty, 
hale, and happy, after effecting the murder of a woman in a dis- 
tant tribe, showed as much conscience as the civilized man, 
though it was terribly distorted. It is not the correctness of the 
object which makes conscience, but the presence of the mental 
elements we have described. Conscience may be badly educated, 
but the worst distortions of its functions do not disprove its exist- 
ence, but only its infallibility. Hence the worst specimens of man- 
kind may have it with its moral distinctions implicit in their 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 303 

consciousness, though not developed to its full extent or properly 
enlightened in regard to its application to human life. If 
intuitionalism bases itself upon this fact it may be a tenable 
theory, or at least it may have the merits of a working hypoth- 
esis, and by acting upon it we shall generally see that wisdom is 
justified of her children. Speaking of the most degenerate and 
unpromising, one writer says : " How are we to see their 
good possibilities if there are no signs of them or none that we 
can see? Well, it is our business to look till we do see, to 
search till we find. But, for practical guidance in case of 
despair, I would suggest the rule, even when there are no signs 
of goodness or ability, still believe in both ; no one is so hopelessly 
bad or hopelessly stupid that your faith will not prove in itself a 
cause of cure. The rational conviction left in my mind, indeed, 
after some experience of success and of failure, is that, so far as 
my knowledge of means of influence go, this simple practical faith 
in every individual's worth, and in one's power of bringing that 
worth to light, is best of all." This, of course, is but the popular 
statement of a belief that turns out true, to some extent at least, 
whenever tried, and confirms the assumption both of latent ca- 
pacities and of recognized principles upon which morality can be 
developed. Intuitionalism explains that assumption and serves 
as the basis of that responsibility or degree of it which every 
moralist, whether an empiricist or not, must assume, or wholly 
abandon morality and its demands upon the individual members 
of society. Experience can do absolutely nothing to develop a 
common moral consciousness unless there is a common principle 
to work upon, and hence general intuitionalism must be accepted 
as a condition of giving any meaning to the empiricist's conclu- 
sion about a common morality, though the theory must be based 
upon the implicit rather than the explicit knowledge of moral 
conceptions. 

4. Particular Intuitionalism. — This form of the theory 
maintains that we intuitively know the character of the particu- 
lar virtues and vices, such as murder, theft, cruelty, injustice, 
honesty, purity, veracity, etc. This is to say, that we should 



304 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

know the sin of cruelty without any experience, but immediately 
when a case of it is brought to our notice ; that we should recog- 
nize the virtue of veracity without being told it. This, however, 
is an exaggerated form of the theory, which, we admit, cannot be 
maintained for a moment. The particular virtues and vices are 
nothing more than means to ends, causes of effects, and no 
human mind can tell by a priori processes the particular causes of 
an effect. Man must await the judgment of experience, though 
the principle of cause and effect be a priori and intuitive. For 
example, cruelty is a particular act which produces pain to some 
other person. We can only tell by experience that such an act 
causes pain and that it will always do so. There is no way 
to tell the fact a priori. The same is true of all the actions 
which represent the special virtues and vices. We only learn 
by experience that they are means to ends, and for all that w T e 
know to the contrary the same actions might have produced 
pleasure until we learn their nature by observation and frequent 
experience. Moreover, it is conclusive against this form of the 
theory that there is no such uniformity of belief and knowledge 
regarding special actions as must follow the supposition of that 
doctrine. Nothing is clearer than the fact that some men do not 
know the duty of chastity ; children are slow to learn what 
cruelty is ; savages are ignorant of many of the virtues even 
when conscience may be clear as to one or two of them. In 
short, the differences of civilization, culture, opinion, and practice, 
the world over and in all ages of history, make it impossible to 
suppose that men are equally informed as to the extent of their 
duties, without supposing an inefficiency in those duties, which is 
highly improbable. Hence in the present writer's opinion, how- 
ever desirable it might be to have a greater uniformity of 
insight into the specific virtues, if only in the interests of a 
theory which conditions the higher degrees of responsibility, it is 
a fact that it cannot be borne out by observation and experience, 
and it only results in inhumanity to assume it. The only form 
of intuitionalism that will bear a moment's examination is the 
general one, assuming an implicit knowledge of moral law, 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 305 

while we must leave to experience the development of an explicit 
knowledge of it and its full extension. Only its intension can 
be given in original knowledge. Its extension represents just 
those influences which it is vain to deny in life, namely, educa- 
tion and discipline, which are the instruments of experience. The 
only object in defending any form of the doctrine at all is the 
necessity of supporting the very responsibility which the empiri- 
cist admits, and must admit, if he does not hold to the absolute 
relativity of all knowledge, which would mean that no two per- 
sons were sufficiently alike to justify the application of the same 
moral law to them. But this is too extravagant for any one to 
take seriously. Hence when empiricists admit the common con- 
sciousness which conditions a common experience and a common 
development, we may well concede that the variations which we ' 
observe in moral development are the product of experience ; 
especially when it serves to explain and condition the humanity 
that is obligatory in a state of unequal responsibility. This will 
be seen in the sequel of the discussion of empiricism. In the 
meantime we can, grant that particular intuitionalism has no 
claims to stand upon, supporting, meanwhile, that form of it which 
does not oppose empiricism, while it serves as a basis for apply- 
ing the same principles to all men in a social organism, though 
modified by the conditions that affect the degrees of responsibil- 
ity, but not the existence of it. With this we may turn to the 
next class of theories. 

IV. EXAMINATION OF EMPIRICAL THEORIES.— It will 
not be necessary here to follow out the analysis of theories far- 
ther than the two general forms, experientialism and evolu- 
tionism. Though we might discuss both general and particular 
experientialism with the same conception of the two terms as 
was applied to intuitionalism, we should find that it would not 
serve any useful purpose. The nature of the arguments is such 
that the distinction does not require to be made, though it 
would result in denying the empirical character of the ultimate 
principles upon which morality rests and the affirmation that 
particular empiricism is true. This will be the conclusion that 



306 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

we shall adopt, while the discussion of the question involves 
problems that are not peculiar to one of them alone, but to both 
alike. The first matter of importance will be to repeat a cau- 
tion about the double meaning of the term " experience," and 
the effect of it upon the controversy. Only one of its significa- 
tions opposes it to intuitionalism, while the other is at least 
partly identical with it, so that we must not allow the forma- 
tion of our opinions to create any illusions due to not observing 
the equivocation to which we have alluded. 

1st. Experientialism. — The definition of this form of empir- 
icism limits it to two conceptions — (a) the origin of moral ideas, 
not faculties; that is, conscience phenomenally, not transcen- 
dentally, understood ; and (6) the limitation of this origin to 
the experience of the individual, not the race. We shall discuss 
the theory by examining the arguments for it and then those 
against it. 

1. Arguments in Favor of Experientialism. — The as- 
sumptions which are made in the argument are generally the 
same in both forms of the theory, though they are not always 
explicitly understood. The importance of a better understand- 
ing of them will appear in the sequel of our criticism. But in 
the meantime we can simply state and explain the cogency of 
the claims made in favor of the theory. The arguments upon 
which its advocates rely are as follows : 

(a) The Association of Conduct with Pleasure and Pain. — 
This argument was proposed after Hartley's rediscovery of 
association as a fundamental law of mind. The utilitarians 
seized upon it to combat the doctrine which claimed, or seemed 
to claim, that the nature of moral rules about honesty, veracity, 
justice, theft, homicide, etc., were directly known without refer- 
ence, near or remote, to pleasure and pain. Then again what- 
ever the ultimate end of life, it was apparent that the particular 
virtues were but means to attain it, and the vices but means of 
losing it. Then the problem was to explain how we came to 
adopt such rules ; how we came to connect them with the ulti- 
mate object of life. Inasmuch as the utilitarian maintained 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 307 

that pleasure or happiness is the highest good and pain the only 
evil, his problem was to explain how we came to attach the 
predicate of morality to rules and actions which led to this re- 
sult. His argument, therefore, was that whatever the source of. 
our idea of the highest good, the rules for obtaining it came 
from the association of pleasure with the actions which led to it 
and of pain with those which led away from it. Thus if we 
came to set up honesty as a virtue it was because we found it 
uniformly associated with pleasure, and dishonesty with pain, 
just as we learned that putting our hands into the fire would 
cause pain. The desire to do anything immediately recalled 
previous experience with a similar act, and according as it had 
been accompanied by pleasure or pain there was inclination or 
restraint regarding it, and those actions were called good which 
conduced to pleasure and those were called bad which conduced 
to pain. At first the pleasures and pains, being concerned with 
the self-interested actions, would give rise to egoistic conduct 
which would not be strictly moral unless there was no conflict 
with the interests and rights of others. But the pleasures of 
sympathy and the pains of antipathy would give rise to conduct 
of' a higher order, which we call altruistic and which is moral 
par excellence. Thus the whole range of morality is supposed to 
be covered by the influence of association. 

(b) The Influence of Authority. — The association of conduct 
with pleasures and pains does not account for all the elements of 
morality or conscience. The sense of duty is a mental datum 
which the empiricist admits to be a form of constraint, that seems 
to oppose the pursuit of pleasure, and hence cannot be accounted 
for by association of pleasures and pains with the actions which 
it prompts, inasmuch as it often enjoins the sacrifice of a pleas- 
ure and the endurance of a pain. Hence in order to explain 
the origin of this feeling the empiricist appeals to the influence 
of authority which operates as some external force to limit the 
natural choice of the individual. It is a demand that the in- 
dividual conform his conduct to the will of a superior power 
or an external order whether he desires to do so or not. The 



308 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

application of such restraints as this authority implied was de- 
signed to obtain results which ought to come from sympathy, 
social instinct, and regard for higher powers. But since the 
individual is not always governed by these prompting agencies, 
the only resource was to apply the principle of rewards and pen- 
alties to enforce a course of action more in harmony with gen- 
eral interests than the egoistic instincts. This authority is of 
three kinds — political, social, and religious. They operate in the 
same way and to the same effect, but differ in their mode of 
application. Thus political authority and restraint prohibits 
certain actions like theft, murder, cheating, frauds, and injustice 
generally under appropriate penalties. Public opinion holds a 
man under condemnation who does not respect social welfare 
and ostracizes him socially for his disregard of others, so as to 
make it his interest to adjust his conduct to suit his social envi- 
ronment. Religious sanctions appeal to the pleasure and dis- 
pleasure of a divine being with certain rewards and penalties 
here and hereafter to influence the individual's actions. All of 
these restraints operate to place a man in a struggle between his 
own natural desires and what is demanded by these external 
forces. From this conflict between what one must do and what 
he would do arises the sense pf duty which is the constraint 
or necessity of obeying a law other than one's own desire or 
personal interest. In this way authority is supposed to pro- 
duce the element of conscience, which is more than the mere 
pursuit of pleasure, and represents enforced adjustment to an 
order to which the individual would not spontaneously conform. 
The hope of reward and the fear of punishment are the motives 
to which authority appeals, so that duty is the unwilling pursuit 
of an object which it is dangerous to neglect and which the 
individual would like to disregard with impunity. 

(c) The Influence of Reason. — If authority accounts for the 
feeling of constraint, it does not explain the voluntary obedience 
of the will out of respect for law after the restraints of power are 
removed. Thus parental authority may be necessary to obtain 
obedience and to form correct habits in the child, but there 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 309 

comes a time when the momentum of habit continues after the 
force of authority has been removed. The same is true of polit- 
ical, social, and religious forces. A period arrives when they are 
no longer needed to induce right action and when the individual 
chooses it voluntarily and without compulsion. The individual 
has learned by this ^time to respect the object for which the 
various forms of external sanctions were applied. He has be- 
come reconciled to this purpose and given up the struggle 
against external forces to accept the right as the only rational 
thing to be desired. Disobedience is no longer a temptation 
to him. He has learned to love the right and to do it without 
constraint or resistance. Reason has taught him the right, and 
duty no longer means constraint or necessity, but reverence for 
its law, so that he now has a developed conscience and sense of 
morality with which he did not start in life. The highest motives 
now take the place of the conflict between duty and interest, 
and obedience to the former becomes an act of love and respect. 

To illustrate this important development we may take a few 
examples. The child first obeys the parent because he fears his 
. authority, and afterward when mature he sees for himself that 
the course enforced by authority is the right one and pursues it 
without resistance or the need of restraint. The citizen at first 
obeys the law under penalties and out of fear of them, but grad- 
ually learns that it is easier to obey willingly and to respect its 
commands than it is to be perpetually working under friction. 
At first the religious man follows the precepts of the divine 
ruler from motives of fear and afterward respects the law which 
at first constrained his obedience. Reason is the. main factor 
here in providing enlightenment and in inducing the individual 
to pursue a course of voluntary righteousness. The influence of 
authority is lost and no longer necessary. The subject becomes 
independent of external restraint and dependent only upon con- 
science thus developed. 

2. Arguments against Expementialism. — The criticism 
of empiricism will involve a very careful analysis of the various 
conceptions entering into the controversy, and which create 



310 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

much confusion on both sides. It will also seem to offer a much 
larger number of objections than the three arguments in the 
defense of the theory. But this is only because there is much 
confusion as to its real meaning and in regard to the terms 
employed in discussing it. This fact will be brought out in its 
place. We must proceed with the criticism. 

(a) The Assumption of Association in any Case.— The associa- 
tion of pleasures and pains with conduct must be assumed in 
any theory, and on this account cannot be made a special plea in 
favor of empiricism. No one has ever affirmed that pleasure is 
not the proper accompaniment and resultant of virtue and pain 
of vice. They may not be the immediate consequence, but they 
are sure to follow at some time and in some way, though we 
may not be able to establish the connection between a right act 
and some subsequent pleasure, or between a wrong act and 
some subsequent pain. Moreover, general intuitionalism, which 
we have defended, depends as much as experientialism upon the 
association of pleasures and pains with conduct for the determi- 
nation of the proper means to ends, so that association and ex- 
perience do not determine the rightness of actions leading to an 
ideal end, but only their causal connection with it, a very neces- 
sary procedure under any theory. 

(6) The Non-moral Character of mere Authority. — Authority 
can do nothing but appeal to the motive of fear, and this is 
not a moral feeling nor an element of conscience. Conduct 
from obedience to authority cannot have more than an objec- 
tively moral character. It does not reflect the slightest trace of 
subjective morality, and hence can effect absolutely nothing in 
producing the fundamental element of conscience, though it 
may develop the habit of deliberation. Conscience acts either 
from the constraint of duty or from the reverence of right, 
neither of which is found in the motive of fear, to which every 
form of authority appeals. Authority may have a place in the 
attainment of morality externally considered, but it is not the first 
nor the most important factor, if it effects anything at all in the 
moralization of man. It is this which must be realized in order 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 311 

to produce conscience and its moral conceptions. Empiricism is 
under the delusion that authority is more than mere power. 
The term, in fact, is ambiguous. Xow it denotes mere power 
which is able to enforce its will, and again it denotes legiti- 
macy. If the empiricist uses it in the first sense, he fails 
to establish the genesis of conscience or moral ideas. If he 
uses it in the second sense he begs the question by reasoning 
in a circle. Legitimate authority contains the very morality 
which the empiricist is endeavoring to account for, while the 
theory requires that it shall not. On the other hand, if it be 
the sense of authority which external restraints create, the case 
is no better. For, if authority is taken as mere power, able to 
make itself effective, the sense of it is only the sense of power 
that the individual feels and he obeys out of fear. If it be the 
sense of legitimacy which the subject feels, then that quality 
either exists in the authority unaccounted for and prior to its 
effect on the individual, or it cannot be produced by merely 
enforced obedience, and simply reflects the prior and indepen- 
dent existence of that which authority is supposed to produce. 
At every turn, therefore, the argument from authority breaks 
down, no matter whether the authority be political, social, or 
religious, dynamic or legitimate. 

(c) The Irrelevance of Benevolent Instincts. — Sympathy and 
benevolence may be good impulses, and it may be desirable to 
have them rather than the selfish. But as long as they are 
mere instincts they do not enter the field of conscious and 
rational morality, which is the phenomenon to be explained. In 
fact, if instincts of the benevolent kind were the whole of moral- 
ity, there would be no need whatever of conscience. Moral and 
rational ideas must be superadded to them before they can be 
regarded as moral. If this is not true, they are moral and the 
phenomenon of morality is not accounted for by referring it to 
them. The theory requires that they shall not contain the ele- 
ments of conscience in order that it may sustain the claim of 
its origin from their exercise, and we shall find that this assump- 
tion, too, is fatal to the doctrine. The problem is to know 



312 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

whether moral impulses are modifications of natural impulses 
without the addition of a quality which the latter does not 
account for by derivation. 

(d) The Inconvertibility of Conscience with that from which 
Empiricism originates it. — A theory of the genesis of conscience 
usually assumes that the source from which it is derived con- 
tains none of it. Indeed we can hardly be said to have ex- 
plained its origin at all, unless we have named an antecedent 
which does not contain it. On the other hand, if it does contain 
it, we have either not found its origin or it is not what it is 
assumed to be. Now, empiricists have quite generally admitted 
that conscience or moral ideas contain elements which are not 
found in the sources to which they appeal for an explanation of 
it. If this assumption be true, there is reason to suppose that 
they can give it an origin later in the life of the individual than 
other and more primitive mental states. By supposition, if 
native, moral ideas must be as old, that is, coeval with con- 
sciousness, either implicitly or explicitly. But if they are not, 
their later appearance puts them on a level with the acquired 
ideas, and hence to show that morality is felt only long after ex- 
periences in pleasure and pain, and under the pressure of 
authority, is to show that it is subsequent to elements containing 
none of it, and its origin thus seems to rob it of its natural char- 
acter. But the dilemma involved in this assumption is clear. 
On the one hand, if the elements from which morality is sup- 
posed to originate contain none of it, it is impossible to give it 
this derivation, and if they do contain it, either its origin has 
not been determined or its nature is the same as its source and is 
not what it is supposed to be, namely, different from its causes. 

This criticism applies fully to the first two arguments ad- 
vanced in favor of experientialism. In the first place, if associa- 
tion of pleasures and pains with particular acts originates the 
idea of right and wrong, then right and wrong can be nothing 
else than the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, or it 
must be the reflex reaction of a moral faculty which represents 
more than this quality, and which has been set into action by 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 313 

the influence of those experiences. But the latter supposition is 
nativism, and the former contradicts the admitted fact that 
conscience is more than the desire of pleasure. Moreover, if 
this association of pleasures and pains is sufficient to account for 
conscience, it is absurd to appeal to the influence of authority, 
which must either assume that other motives are necessary or 
wholly abandon its argument. In the second place, the same 
dilemma appears in the argument from authority. Power, 
such as authority is, either contains the morality which it origi- 
nates or it does not. If it contains it, the origin of it is not 
determined ; if it does not contain it, then morality cannot be 
derived from it, though elicited by it, and the mystery of its 
origin is as great as ever. 

It should be again remarked that morality must lie at the 
basis of all authority or no other motive can be evoked by it 
than fear, inasmuch as it is, without this moral basis, nothing 
but the exercise of sheer power. In the former case its origin is 
not proved, and in the latter it does not exist. Conscience must 
exist behind authority or it cannot evoke moral obedience, and 
if it is not rendered legitimate b} r a moral purpose there can 
never arise the moral obligation to obey it. We might submit 
to it as to a superior power, but we should never feel that its 
commands deserved respect. The sense of duty arises only 
when we see that the authority is moral, and if it be moral that 
quality already exists before its exercise and before it is sup- 
posed to originate in the consciousness of those w T ho obey it. 
In other words, moral consciousness has to exist before author- 
ity can originate it in any one else, and hence authority does 
not absolutely originate it. On the other hand, if it does not 
exist with the exercise of authority there can be no absolute 
duty to obey it. Prudence might dictate submission to its 
power, but conscience would never recognize its legitimacy and 
the sense of duty would have no reason for existence. The fact 
is that conscience is a precondition of knowing the legitimacy 
which reason comes to respect, and cannot be originated by that 
which is its object. 



314 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

(e) The Incompatibility of the Third with the First and Sec- 
ond Arguments. — The introduction of reason to supply the sense 
of respect for law, which is a most important element of con- 
science, is an admission that neither the association of pleasures 
and pains nor the influence of authority can produce conscience. 
What the empiricist fails to see here is the distinction between 
subjective and objective morality, the latter of which may be 
attained by any motive whatever, and the former only by con- 
scientiousness or good will, which involves the existence of con- 
science to begin with. The association of pleasures and pains 
with particular actions, and the exercise of authority which 
appeals to these very motives, may effect the realization of ex- 
ternal morality, but they cannot produce internal morality, and 
it is an admission of the fact to resort to reason for the purpose 
of obtaining an element in conscience which they cannot supply. 
But this appeal to reason, as finally acquiescing in the regula- 
tions of political, social, and religious authority, is a petitio 
principii if it is meant to oppose intuitionalism. For reason is 
precisely the source to which the nativist resorts, and as long as 
this is admitted to be a natural function of the subject we may 
say what we please about its relation to moral conceptions. 
They will be quite as native as the faculty whose function they 
are, and to use it as the final resort of empiricism is a subrep- 
tion of the worst kind, involving the assumption of intuition 
without admitting it. Moreover, the reverence for moral law 
and authority, which is undoubtedly an element of conscience, 
but cannot be produced by any external influence, is more 
than the instinctive desire for pleasure and aversion to pain. 
For this reason it cannot be the expression of anything but 
natural powers of the individual, and as intuitionalism does not 
depend for its truth upon the time when conscience manifests 
itself, or when the sense of duty becomes effective, it is clear 
that experience cannot originate it in any but the first sense of 
the term, not being able to produce any increment that is not 
found in the proper exercise of reason. 

(/) The Equivocal Import of the Term " Origin" — The di- 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 315 

lemma of empiricism, which has already been discussed, is 
created largely by the equivocation lurking in the term 
" origin," which has two distinct meanings. The first of these 
denotes a beginning in time and refers the event or phenomenon 
having an initium to a cause containing none of it This is the 
efficient cause (causa efficiens, ratio fiendi) and is external to 
the event produced. An illustration of such a cause is sunshine 
causing the growth of vegetation, the stroke of a hammer caus- 
ing an indenture in some substance, the death of an individual 
by a bullet, the destruction of an object by a cannon-ball or ex- 
plosion, the effect of cold air upon the clouds to cause a rainfall, 
etc. The second meaning is that of derivation or dependence of 
a fact upon something containing it. This is logical participa- 
tion or metaphysical origin, and the antecedent or condition of 
the thing whose nature and derivation is desired is called the 
material cause (causa materialis, ratio essendi). As illustrations 
we may instance the " origin " or derivation of benevolence 
from sympathy, of personal interest from the pursuit of pleasure, 
of murder from inhumanity, geometrical figures from space re- 
lations, particular from general truths, etc. Or, again, the 
morality of honesty, of earnestness, of truthfulness originates in 
the end which they subserve, and the policy of a government 
originates from the motives which it has in serving the people. 
All these and many other similar cases show how the character- 
istics of any particular fact are derived, or as we may say, 
have their "origin," from the general class of phenomena of 
which the particular act is a species or an illustration. 

It is the difference between these two meanings which gives 
rise to much of the confusion of the problem and its discussion. 
In examining the origin of conscience we have two problems. 
The first is its historical origin in time, subsequent to events 
without which presumably it would not appear, and the second 
is the derivation of its contents, the general psychological phe- 
nomena which constitute it. In order to prove its claims empir- 
icism must show that conscience is a new event in the course of 
development, that it has not been simultaneous with or ante- 



316 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

cedent to certain other events presumably natural and yet not 
containing conscience. Now, it finds the association of pleasures 
and pains with conduct and the influence of authority prior to 
any voluntary recognition of moral law, and intimately con- 
nected with the appearance of it, and hence it assigns con- 
science, phenomenally considered, of course, an " origin " in 
time later than the primary elements of consciousness. This is 
probably true. AYe can go farther and say that we think it is 
true. But it is no answer to the claim of the intuitionist whose, 
position does not rest upon the innateness of conscience (tran- 
scendentally considered), though he is privileged to maintain 
this while also holding that the manifestation of it may be late 
in the history of consciousness, but it rests more especially upon 
the .immediacy, the universality, and the necessity of its judg- 
ments when it is manifested. Experience, pleasure, and pain, 
and authority could not have a common effect were there not a 
common consciousness to appreciate them. It is apparent from 
this mode of argument that experientialism and intuitionalism 
are not opposed to each other in this - the first sense of the term 
origin. Experientialism simply refers to the conditions of the 
manifestation of conscience and intuitionalism to the character- 
istics of it and the mode of its manifestation. 

In regard to the second meaning of the term " origin," empir- 
icism utterly fails to give the derivation of conscience, as its own 
argument practically confesses, unless it means to dissolve it 
into the pursuit of pleasure and the fear of authority. This 
would be an " origin " for it which could be disproved only by 
showing that as a matter of fact conscience contained other 
elements than the two mentioned. But empiricism helps at its 
own destruction by admitting that conscience contains elements 
which are not found in the phenomena from which it is 
presumably derived. Nothing" is clearer than the general 
maxim that an object or thing cannot be evolved from that 
which contains none of it, unless we are going to admit 
the special creation theory, which the empiricist never does. 
Xow, if conscience can be derived from elements not con- 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 317 

taining it, there is no reason to limit them to pleasure and 
fear, and if it cannot be so derived, there is also no reason 
to resort to these elements, and we are left to certain mental 
functions to explain its " origin " or manifestation. The only 
remaiuing question is whether the faculty exhibitiug moral 
phenomena is a natural one or not, or whether these phenomena 
are creations of empirical causes or not. No one is so hardy as 
to maintain this. The faculty exists and circumstances have 
only stimulated it into activity. The phenomena of conscience 
are thus natural with the characteristics claimed for them by 
the general intuitionalist, though the empiricist be right in the 
claim that they do not appear until instigated by the causes to 
which he refers them. We find, then, by this analysis, that the 
two theories occupy two entirely distinct fields wholly unopposed 
to each other, and they only appear so when their advocates are 
under the illusion occasioned by the equivocation of the term 
" origin." Empiricism correctly surmises a set of influences which 
do not contain conscience or moral phenomena, but which act 
as instigating causes of their historical appearance, but decides 
nothing about their nativity, which is not dependent wholly 
upon an existence coeval with elementary consciousness. On the 
other hand, intuitionalism demands an " origin " from elements 
containing what conscience represents, but is not concerned with 
its historical genesis, the two theories coming into conflict only 
when one assumes to perform the functions of the other. Be- 
sides this, empiricism, as already remarked, is wholly correct in 
its explanation of particular moral conceptions, the explicit 
knowledge of them and of general principles and of the exten- 
sion of morality, while intuitionalism must surrender this field. 
Beyond this, however, the intuitionalist is as unquestionably 
correct in regard to the underived character of general moral 
principles and the impossibility of giving them an empirical 
" origin." 

(g) Confusion from the Conception of Experience. — Many 
persons are the victims in this discussion of the etymological 
import of the term " a priori " Intuitive knowledge is often 



318 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

called a priori because it can be determined from premises al- 
ready <known and without waiting until the facts take place in 
" experience." Thus I may infer a priori from the law of grav- 
itation that a stone will fall to the ground, if unsupported, 
without waiting to see it fall. This is called a priori knowledge 
because it anticipates the perception (experience) of its actual 
occurrence, though it may not anticipate all "experience" 
whatsoever. But it is often defined as if it were prior to every 
form of experience, though it is prior to only one form of it. The 
two meanings to which we have already referred are primary 
perceptions or any realization in consciousness, and collective 
events with an increment at the end not found at the beginning. 
The former is a direct perception of a fact requiring but one 
trial to determine its truth, such as a burn, a sound, a sensation 
of color, occurrence of an accident, or the consciousness of any 
event whatever; the latter involves repetition under various 
conditions to verify a supposition made, or to establish the gen- 
eral character of a law or truth, as the merits of a democracy, 
the correct judgment of size and distance, the law of the tides, 
the uniformity of connection between any given act and a cer- 
tain effect, the effect of wet weather upon the state of vegetation, 
etc. Now, it is evident that an a priori or intuitive truth cannot 
be perceived prior to " experience " in the first sense of that 
term, because they are identical in their meaning. Realization 
in consciousness and intuition are the same, and a priori denotes 
the same, with also at times, especially in the Kantian sys- 
tem, the added idea of subjective and necessary action of the 
mind. In this sense it expresses what is a law of thought, a 
condition of experience, and so prior to every form of it. But 
as applied to the act of mind perceiving a truth it is not 
prior to experience as an immediate perception. But as ap- 
plied to the elementary mental perceptions it is and must be 
prior to "experience" in the second sense, which was the only 
meaning given the term by Aristotle and probably Greek thought 
generally, while the phrase " antecedent to experience," which 
has figured so generally as a definition of " a priori," has been 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 319 

intended either for this meaning alone or for those conditions 
of experience which are merely the laws or capacities rather 
than the actions of consciousness. Hence it was only after the 
Aristotelean conception of experience had been changed, prob- 
ably from the influence of Locke, to include immediate percep- 
tion not requiring repetition or verification, that the notion of 
" antecedence to experience," as applied to a positive state of 
consciousness, came to seem absurd. But those cognitions which 
carry their own evidence with them when once perceived, such 
as every cause must have an effect, or vice versa, two and two 
make four, things equal to the same thing are equal to each 
other, etc., will always antecede the repeated or various " experi- 
ences " which may illustrate them, or such " experiences " as 
afford no positive conviction of any truth other than the facts of 
consciousness themselves. Now, moral convictions belong to 
this class of cognitions and perceptions ; that is, the subjective, 
not the objective, elements of morality. They do not require 
repetition to verify them or to determine their value and imper- 
ativeness, while the objective -do require it. Hence empiricism 
may explain the origin of our conception of the particulars of 
objective morality by showing the gradual growth of them in 
consciousness, but does not explain by the same process the 
appearance, tenacity, firmness, and universality of the subjective 
elements. 

(7i) Contradiction of Its Anti-theological Argument — This ob- 
jection is only ad hominem and applies only to the skeptical 
empiricist. Experientialists are usually skeptics in regard to 
the theory which refers the origin of morality to the will of 
God. In criticising this doctrine they emphasize the absurdity 
of having morality dependent upon mere will, or the fiat of 
arbitrary power, which is the same as authority. But then 
when proposing its derivation from experience the same persons 
appeal to authority, political and social, to account for it. This 
contradiction is very noticeable in the system of Mr. Spencer. 
He ridicules the doctrine of Jonathan Dymond, who thought 
that God could have reversed the character of virtue and vice 



320 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

had He chosen to do so, and then proposes political, social, and 
religious restraints as determining influences in the production 
both of morality and moral consciousness. These restraints are 
nothing but the exercise of authority, which, as we have already 
shown, must be either nothing but the exercise of power — that 
is, superior strength — or legitimate power. The last of these, as 
we have seen, begs the question and the former contradicts the 
criticism of the theological doctrine. One or the other claim 
must be given up. We cannot reject the authority of God in 
one relation and set it up to do the same thing in another, and 
much less can we reject divine authority to substitute human 
authority for effecting what the will of God cannot do. 

There may be empiricists, however, who do not deny the pos- 
sibility of the theological theory, and against them this criticism 
will not apply. The previous argument is all that is relevant to 
their claims. 

(i) General Facts of Human Experience. — All the objections 
to experientialism have been designed to apply only to the 
experience of the individual, though some of the arguments in 
favor of the theory are used in support of evolution. Whether 
relevant or not to evolution we do not care to say at present. 
We wish only to emphasize the fact that we are now only crit- 
icising the supposition that moral conceptions and conscience can 
be produced by the experience of the individual and do not 
require the experience of the race for the effect. This doctrine 
w T as the universal one among empiricists until evolution was 
advanced. It is sufficient to observe that it is now quite as 
universally abandoned for that of development, which admits the 
nativity of conscience and moral distinctions for the rationally 
developed man of to-day, but distributes the experience that 
produces them over the history of the race. This abandonment 
of it simply confirms the force of the objections above made to 
it, and the justification of that abandonment is found in the evi- 
dence of natural morality and of the existence of conscience 
among even the most degraded specimens of the human race. 
Conscience appears so quickly in many individuals, and so often 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 321 

appears where there has been no experience worth mentioning, 
that it is easier to suppose it merely latent and inefficient than 
to invoke the precarious influence of association and the fear of 
authority to account for it. It is so universal in some measure 
of its exercise where experience is very slight, and so variously 
developed and ineffective where experience, association, and 
authority have been abundant, that it is easier to- suppose it a 
native function, and that it is only the range of its application 
and efficiency which are influenced by experience. 

2d. Evolutionism. — As we have already remarked, this theory 
endeavors to account for the faculty of conscience as well as its 
mode of action, inasmuch as it assumes that it is developed 
from an order of beings who were wholly without it. It is a 
deliberate attempt to bridge the chasm between man and the 
animals, morally as well as physically. It is thus much more 
radical in its empirical character than simple experientialism 
and has the advantage of appealing to periods of time which 
might account for much and whose influence an opponent is 
powerless to confute for the lack of data, and of the possibility 
of obtaining them, to make out a case. The arguments for it 
are the same as those for experientialism, though they receive 
appropriate and supplementary additions. For this reason it 
Avill not be necessary to cover the ground so exhaustively, but 
only to examine the additional facts upon which it depends, and 
in a general topic give our own conclusions regarding the doc- 
trine. In the meantime an examination of Spencer and Darwin 
may serve for criticism. The following will be the arguments 
for evolution in addition to those for experientialism, which is 
confined to the life of the individual, and are here summarized 
without comment : 

1. Facts in Support of Evolution. — These refer to in- 
fluences which first affect the life and thought of the individual 
and are through him transmitted to the race and become perma- 
nent elements in the constitution of developed individuals in the 
later periods of history. 

(a) Adjustment to Environment. — This is adaptation to all the 



322 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

external influences which may impose any limitations upon the 
liberty and caprices of the individual, and comprises the effect 
of association of pleasures and pains, obedience to authority, 
political, social, and religious, and rational acquiescence in these 
limitations. Man finds himself in a universe where he must 
adjust himself to its conditions of climate, temperature, food, and 
his own physical wants. Then others demand equal rights with 
himself and political and social restraints are imposed in order 
to make each individual respect those rights. All these require 
very careful adjustment, physical, political, social, and moral, on 
the part of each individual. They impress a certain uniformity 
of conduct, such as environment may require for survival or for 
the attainment of welfare, and bring the individual will under 
law and order, subjecting it to other ends than its own caprices. 
The effect is the attainment of objective morality. 

(V) The Influence of Habit — This fact is the first that distinc- 
tively favors the doctrine of evolution. Habit is persistency in 
a certain course of conduct, and however it may be explained, it 
takes on a quasi-mechanical character. It always represents, 
after it is formed, the line of least resistance, and seems to effect 
a sort of organic or constitutional change in the nature of the 
subject, such as prompts him to act in that direction rather than 
in a new one. Thus the man who has been in the habit of reg- 
ularly attending to his business becomes so fixed in his ways that 
he will continue to frequent his old places of activity long after 
he has retired from the life requiring it, and when there is no 
reason but habit to account for it. The habits of city life often 
render it very difficult, if not impossible, to draft off the inhab- 
itants into a rural enviroument. Those thoroughly accustomed 
to the country feel out of place in the city. Habits of commer- 
cial business unfit a man, in some cases, for an intellectual life, 
and vice versa, and always make it more difficult. Intemper- 
ance becomes a fixed habit which scarcely any influence can 
overcome. Voluptuousness may so enslave an individual that he 
will commit suicide in a reverse of fortune rather than adjust him- 
self to a new environment. These are all special and clear ill us- 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 323 

trations of the organic effects of habit. The effects are probably 
the same for every form of habit, good or bad, though they may 
not be so marked nor so fixed. They always render action along 
their line more easy and in that way create physical and mental 
tendencies in the individual that are very like a faculty and 
certainly strengthen and give supremacy over others to those 
which are specially active, while inactive impulses fall into dis- 
use and decay. Moral habits' in this way acquire efficiency to 
suppress the lower impulses and to keep them in subjection, 
while making it easier to adjust oneself to environment and 
strengthening their tendency to rule life and to become a perma- 
nent constitutional element of the subject. 

(c) The Influence of Heredity. — Habit can do nothing but 
create a more or less permanent tendency to act along the line 
of least resistance and to give strength and supremacy to some 
particular impulse in the individual. But this capacity dies 
with the individual and is lost, unless there be some means 
of handing it on to the next generation. Well, heredity accom- 
plishes this feat. The qualities of offspring are acquired from 
the parent. This is evident in the apparent permanency of the 
species. If any modifications take place they are very gradual, 
as evolutionists admit. But the passage from parent to offspring 
is so fixed that the same form, structure, capacities, wants, and 
actions are always expected and found from generation to gener- 
ation, with only such changes as may be accounted for by 
adjustment, habit, and inherited increments. This is only the 
general fact, and it remains to ascertain whether the influence of 
habit on the individual can be inherited, whether the fixed way 
of acting, which Carlyle calls habit, in the ancestor, can become a 
predisposition or line of least resistance in posterity. The evolu- 
tionist holds that it can, and it does not matter here whether we 
hold with Weissmann that acquired characters are not inherited 
or whether we affirm that they are inherited. For we have only 
to suppose that the exercise of a function as shown in habit in- 
creases the power of the capacity connected with it, as an 
inherent quality of the individual, and reduces the action of 



324 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

others in order to conform to Weissmann's demands. On the 
other hand, if habit as an acquired activity can appear in 
posterity as a predisposition in the same direction, the case 
is also made out. It is only a question whether habit expresses 
only an acquired character or both an inherent capacity ren- 
dered more efficient and an acquired character, and it does not 
require us to settle which it means. In either instance we can 
expect an increment from generation to generation which may 
result in wide divergencies after the lapse of long periods and 
variations of environment and experience. In this way habits 
of adjustment may become fixed tendencies in one generation and 
a predisposition of an organic character in the next, with a 
tendency to greater supremacy and the atrophy of competing 
impulses and functions. Moral qualities may gradually arise 
as they become useful and dominant in the consciousness of the 
subject, their tendency to development and permanence increas- 
ing with their exercise and their efficiency in supplanting non- 
moral instincts. 

(d) The Influence of Natural Selection. — Natural selection ex- 
presses the tendency to survive of those individuals who best 
adjust themselves to environment, and who cultivate those 
qualities which are most useful in the struggle for existence. 
For instance, a due regard to the incidents of pleasure and pain 
will produce or favor the best physical conditions for competing 
with external forces. Obedience to authority will favor the 
individual who obeys, by giving him various advantages con- 
nected with improved living, and every habit which serves to per- 
fect a man will tend to secure him survival against less favored 
competitors, just as the supremacy of one impulse secures its sur- 
vival against others. Hence, the utility of moral conceptions 
would show itself in securing them supremacy and survival. 
The man who practices prudence would outbid the self-indulgent 
man and leave behind him more and better progeny for the next 
generation, with fewer handicapping tendencies. Then higher 
moral conceptions with the superior advantages conferred by 
them, with the attractions of character which they present to all 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 325 

who admire them, and with everything to encourage the selection 
of the individuals possessing them for building up the social or- 
ganism, would tend to propagate themselves more readily than 
those which are less adjusted to environment. Those possessing 
lower impulses would tend to disappear, and there would finally 
be left only those who showed the" most prudence and the best 
conscience, indicating their adjustment to the conditions which 
will encourage nothing else. In this way that process of elimi- 
nation of the bad and selection of the good goes on, which results 
in the universality of moral consciousness as it is observed to-day, 
except in those cases which are reversions to more primitive 
types. But natural selection tends to confer all the rewards of 
existence upon the best and strongest individuals, and to pro- 
duce that uniformity of character which seems so much in favor 
of intuitionalism. It adds to the influence of heredity a discrim- 
inating tendency in favor of the. best, and against the worst, thus 
economizing and improving the resources of nature, and accom- 
plishing the progress which evolution represents. Moral concep- 
tions are only one of the many factors represented in this 
survival, but are the best and ripest fruit of that mysterious 
process which we are only beginning to fathom and in which, in 
his reverence for them, man has thought to find traces of the di- 
vine workmanship. 

2. Darwin's View of Conscience and its Evolution. — 
Darwin's account of the origin of conscience is interesting as 
showing the weakness of the whole doctrine, as it is usually pre- 
sented, though he deserves the credit of implying that it is a com- 
plex faculty or group of phenomena. But his analysis is very 
imperfect, and his explanation of its genesis exposes his doc- 
trine to all the criticisms of which the opponent of evolution 
is so eager to avail himself. We shall state and examine his 
theory. 

Darwin regards conscience as a modified social instinct. Duty 
and respect for law are but impulses directed by that instinct. It 
develops into the form known as conscience in the following 
manner : First there is the exercise of mutual sympathy among 



326 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

animals, due to incipient, social instincts, as illustrated in gre- 
gariousness, tribal solidarity, and natural affections. The devel- 
opment of the mental faculties in the same connection would be 
accompanied by the memory of past actions, with the satisfaction 
that social impulses would yield, and the dissatisfaction yielded 
by the less social instincts. These would avail to encourage the 
social impulses and to give them the efficiency and supremacy 
which favor survival. Then when language was perfected pub- 
lic opinion could add its influence to social agencies of the 
natural kind. Sympathy and authority would supplement each 
other to overcome purely egoistic influences. Habit would 
strengthen sympathy and overcome the resistance implied in the 
fear of authority, and gradually give rise to respect for the end 
to which it was adjusted. By these processes the altruistic in- 
stincts would conquor the egoistic and become more permanent. 
The sense of duty arises in the struggle for supremacy between 
these two different impulses, though it is not found in the order 
of existence until we reach man. 

This doctrine is very clearly stated by Darwin, along with con- 
fessions which very much mar its consistency. The criticism of 
it will bring out its defects and show more clearly what the real 
problem is, which will be found to differ very much from the 
conception of Mr. Darwin. 

In the first place, conscience gets its name from the fact that 
it is more than a social instinct, more than both instinct and so- 
ciality, and it would not get the name were it not more than this. 
Hence its origin is not accounted for until this new element is 
derived. In order to derive it from elements found in the lower 
order of existence, Darwin should specify more than social in- 
stinct there, and that might be to merely abandon the question of 
origin. Social instincts, as instincts, may give rise to objective 
morality, but they can do nothing more. It is only when they 
are rationalized that they can be called moral, and they cannot 
be rationalized until reason is already in existence. But the 
fatal criticism to Darwin's theory is his admission that the essen- 
tial element of a moral sense is the comparison of past and future 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 327 

actions and motives, and that animals do not show any traces of 
a disposition to make such a comparison. If conscience is devel- 
oped from animal intelligence, we should find the elements of it 
there, and if animals do not show any traces of them, they either 
do not exist there or are a new character in man not referable 
to the process of evolution. The use made of language and pub- 
lic opinion is wholly irrelevant, as they can only render more 
efficient the functions already existing, but cannot originate them. 
Indeed the very reference to them as agents in the result proves 
his entire misunderstanding of the problem and his tendency to 
confuse " origin " with evolution. This is still more evident in the 
admission that the essential element of conscience is not found 
among animals, but is distinctly human, which only makes it a 
new factor, whose origin is either wholly unaccounted for or 
must be referred to the theory of special creation, which is the 
very doctrine Darwin would set aside. 

In discussing Darwin's theory of the origin of moral sense and 
conscience, however, we must remember that it does not profess 
to be exhaustive, but is only a tentative effort to account for the 
very factor which opponents of the general doctrine maintained 
was sufficient to make an impassable chasm between man and 
brute. Had it not been that he tacitly conceded their main con- 
tention, the use of social instincts and the struggle between al- 
truistic and egoistic impulses, with the consequent sense of duty 
incident to that conflict, would have rendered a very fair account 
of the matter by minimizing the distance between the two orders 
of existence, upon which the opponents of evolution relied in or- 
der to make out their case. But that concession was a fatal 
weakness, and the w T hole argument is an illustration of the need 
of more careful analysis of conscience, and of stating the various 
causes of it, so that their real influence could be understood. We 
shall turn next to the view of Mr. Spencer. 

3. Spencer's Theory of the Evolution of Conscience. 
— Mr. Spencer has worked out his doctrine much more systemat- 
ically. With him conscience and moral consciousness are the 
same, and sometimes he identifies moral consciousness with the 



328 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

sense of obligation, though at others he seems to treat the latter 
as only one mode of the former. But he starts with the element 
that distinguishes moral consciousness and proceeds to explain 
its genesis. " The essential trait in moral consciousness," says he, 
" is the control of certain feelings by certain other feeling or feel- 
ings." In the first place, it is noticeable that this conception of 
it is wholly emotional. But such as it is, Mr. Spencer pro- 
ceeds to show how this superior feeling obtained its power. This 
he says was due to the influence of religious, political, and social 
restraints, which effected a disposition to relinquish immediate 
good and to seek the more distant aud general good. But while 
these restraints supplant moral control, according to Mr. Spencer, 
he is aware of the fact that they do not " constitute it, but are 
only preparatory to it." What the truly moral feeling is, Mr. 
Spencer regards as different from the mental state corresponding 
to these three forms of restraint and control. " The truly moral 
deterrent from murder," he says, " is not constituted by a repre- 
sentation of hanging as a consequence, or by a representation of 
tortures in hell as a consequence, or by a representation of the 
horror and hatred excited in fellow men ; but by a representation 
of the necessary natural results — the infliction of death agony on 
the victim, the destruction of all his possibilities of happiness," 
which, Mr. Spencer might add, the man inherently feels is wrong. 
" One who is morally prompted to fight against a social evil," he 
continues, " has neither material benefit nor popular applause 
before his mind ; but only the mischiefs he seeks to remove and 
the increased well-being which will follow their removal." 
Moral feeling is thus an estimate of the intrinsic worth or evil of 
certain things, and not mere constraint or coercion. This is un- 
questionably a correct analysis of the case, except that the intel- 
lectual element is here surreptitiously introduced into moral con- 
sciousness, but was excluded from it in the definition. But he 
is right in making moral feeling essentially different from that 
produced by the three forms of restraint, and yet after this ad- 
mission one wonders how he expects to account for its genesis by 
reference to these restraints. In fact, as already observed, they 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 329 

can produce nothing but objective morality, while leaving subjec- 
tive morality wholly unexplained. When he comes to stating 
the genesis of the latter, it is apparent from his whole argument 
that he establishes nothing but its efficiency, not its origin. He 
assumes the capacity for estimating right and wrong, and possibly 
the actual consciousness of what right and wrong are, which is 
the phenomenon to be accounted for, while the argument only 
goes to show how the feeling of right and wrong conquers that 
which tempts the individual to disregard it. But conceding that 
this criticism is not accurate, which we have no space to examine 
in detail, the fatal incident in his theory is the flat statement 
that " the restraints properly distinguished as moral are unlike 
the restraints out of which they evolve." This is a very strange 
assertion after admitting that political, social, and religious re- 
straints do not constitute moral feeling, because it implies that 
something can be evolved out of that which contains none of it. We 
have already indicated how necessary it is to the case of empiri- 
cism that this principle be assumed, and also how fatal it was to 
assume it. Mr. Spencer here states it in a very bold and offen- 
sive form, a form which practically admits the creation of new 
elements. After what has been said about the impossibility of 
deriving anything from that which contains none of it, without 
admitting the theory of special creation, which Mr. Spencer is 
opposing, it is not necessary to examine this statement more 
fully. It suffices to show the contradiction between the state- 
ment that political, social, and religious restraints do not originate 
restraints that are properly moral, but are only parallel and co- 
incident with them, and the statement that moral 1 restraints are 
unlike those from which, they are evolved. This view reflects 
the same fatal conception of the problem that we found in Dar- 
win's theory and in empiricism generally, due, of course, to the 
feeling that we must select a set of phenomena not containing 
conscience, in order to prove its comparatively later origin, and 
then assuming that it is derived from them. No doctrine of evo- 
lution can be sustained on such a postulate, except such as repre- 
sents no opposition to the theory of special creation. This is 



330 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

made sufficiently clear by the criticism of the same postulate in 
experientialism. 

One interesting proof of the defect in Mr. Spencer's theory is 
a fact which represents considerable merit in it at the same 
time, but reflects the uselessness of supposing any material in- 
fluence from the various restraints in the development of moral 
consciousness. This is his doctrine of the sense of obligation. 
Mr. Spencer considers this phenomenon as equivalent to moral 
consciousness or conscience, though he seems to intend that it 
shall be narrower and less complex. But he ascribes to it all 
the qualities that are in fact attributed to moral consciousness in 
general, namely, authority and coerciveness. He intends the latter 
attribute to be added to conscience as an accident of its nature. 
The sense of obligation, he claims, is developed from two influ- 
ences. The first is the accumulated experiences which produce "the 
consciousness that guidance by feelings, which refer to remote 
and general results, is usually more conducive to welfare than 
guidance by feelings to be immediately gratified." These higher 
feelings have the characteristic of " authority," which with Mr. 
Spencer can mean nothing else than legitimacy, because the 
notion of power is introduced to describe the second element of 
obligation. " Authority," as legitimacy, can only mean respect 
for some end felt as a moral good, which we shall here call rev- 
erence to distinguish it from the associated notion of mere 
power which the term " authority " always suggests, and which 
the context of Mr. Spencer shows he does not mean. This is 
the element which he regards as the truly moral feeling, and 
which is not constituted by the three forms of external con- 
trol. The second characteristic of obligation as defined by Mr. 
Spencer is coerciveness, or the feeling of constraint, the necessity 
of pursuing a course against one's natural inclinations. This, he 
maintains, is produced by the political, social, and religious re- 
straints that bring the individual will under subjection. Now, 
as this feeling is not the true deterrent of wrong and prompter 
of the right, Mr. Spencer holds that it is the sign of a defective 
moral consciousness, and that it must " diminish as fast as morali- 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 331 

zation increases." The sense of obligation, therefore, he holds is 
transitory, assuming that an ideal condition is possible or prob- 
able where coerciveness or the fear of " authority " (as power) 
is no longer needed. "We shall not dwell upon the fact that his 
conclusion proves too much considered from the point of view of 
his own definition. If he had said that the feeling of coercive- 
ness is transitory he would be both consistent and correct. But 
this is not the only element of obligation according to his own 
definition, which includes " authority," or reverence, as an 
essential characteristic. To make this transitory is to make 
moral consciousness transitory, and he does this by speaking of 
obligation rather than the feeling of coerciveness. He is per- 
haps true in this slip of the tongue to the common conception of 
it, but in that case he should have omitted the element of 
" authority " from it. But not to dwell upon this incident, the 
important fact to be noted is, that the elimination of coercive- 
ness as a transitory element of moral consciousness goes to show 
that the several forms of restraint can be no factor in the pro- 
duction of moral consciousness, but only of a phenomenon which 
is not moral at all. Common sense even asserts that the fear 
of "authority" (as power, and in any other sense the "fear" 
can only be reverence) is not a moral incentive to action, and 
Mr. Spencer's elimination of it only coincides with that convic- 
tion. But it shows, first, that he had not realized that the only 
thing effected by these restraints was objective morality, and not 
moral consciousness properly defined, and second, that if the 
element of " authority " or reverence could exist independently 
of these restraints, they could not be the conditions of it in any 
sense that they were necessary to its character. That is to say, 
political, social, and religious restraints are designed only to pro- 
duce coerciveness and are of no use when reverence or respect for 
the right exists independently of them, and as moral restraints 
cannot be evolved from the fear of power without disappearing 
with it, there is no reason to suppose that the restraint exer- 
cised by power ever had anything to do with the creation of 
this respect. 



332 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

The criticism of Mr. Spencer sums itself up in the weakness 
of the position that morality can be evolved out of that which 
contains none of it. If he had maintained that the causes which 
invoke it or which act as efficient causes to produce its manifes- 
tation contain none of it, there would be less to say in the way 
of objection. But this would not be opposed to nativism, while 
the bald creatio ex nihilo doctrine involved in the evolution of a 
thing not containing it, though it favors empiricism, does so at 
the expense of the very principle for which evolution is supposed 
to stand. The question, then, remains whether w T e can sustain a 
doctrine of evolution at all, if the systems we have noticed are so 
vulnerable and defective. 

V. CONCLUSIONS IN REGARD TO EVOLUTION— Previous 
criticism would seem to imply that the doctrine of evolution 
would have to be rejected. But this conclusion would be a hasty 
one and must depend wholly upon the conception we take of the 
process. In fact, our entire criticism has been intended to bring 
out the need of more careful definition of the problem before tak- 
ing one side or the other. The one great difficulty is that both 
opponents and advocates of the doctrine have not distinguished 
adequately between citation and evolution. Both have assumed 
that the doctrine of evolution is a theory of creation, a theory to 
account for the introduction of absolutely new qualities and 
functions without any appeal to extra-natural causes. On the 
one hand, the advocate of special creation had two facts to start 
from upon which he based the presumably impossible task of ac- 
counting for progress and different effects without the existence 
of supernatural causes. They are («) the apparent fixity of 
species, and (b) the enormous chasm between different species 
which cannot be bridged by what we know of ordinary hered- 
ity. Inasmuch as it was admitted that all species had an 
origin, it was urged that the type was created supernaturally at 
the outset and left to continue its existence without any essential 
variation, while the differences between the various species w T ere 
supposed to be so marked that the higher could not be evolved 
out of the lower, the differential characteristic or characteristics 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 333 

being wholly new data, whose explanation was not referable to 
those of lower orders. The creationist's position, then, was, there- 
fore, identified with the notion of miraculous, occasional, and 
supernatural interference with an order which could only explain 
invariability, inertia, or the absence of change. It accounted for 
the origin of life and for its modification in the same way, and 
even the origin of matter. But it has usually discussed the ques- 
tion as if it were only the origin of life and its modification that 
were concerned, and took the ground that the various increments 
and differences which we observe between the lower and higher 
orders of existence could not be explained by the supposition that 
the latter were evolved out of the former. On the other hand, 
the evolutionist denies the supernatural, denies the fixity of species, 
minimizes the differences between species, and attempts to account 
for the origin of everything by the sufficiency of natural cause's- 
But his misfortune has been that he has supported evolution upon 
creationist postulates. First, he has admitted that there are new 
elements to be accounted for in the scale of existence which con- 
sistency required him to deny, and which the facts used in the 
argument required him to deny. Second, he assumed that nat- 
ural causes could do what his own definition of them maintains 
that they cannot do, namely, the work of the supernatural. He 
assumed that something could be developed from that which con- 
tained none of it, while " natural " causes were supposed incapa- 
ble of any such effect. If they were capable of producing this 
effect it would not be necessary to look for any law in the world 
at all, or for the limitation of any species to a like ancestry. 
Such a thing as sterility ought not to exist under any conception 
of the world which identifies evolution with the origin of things 
from that which contains none of them. It could only be an 
order in which things originated either spontaneously, that is, 
without a cause, or by supernatural agency. Hence the only re- 
source for consistent evolution is to abandon the concession 
made to creationism and to analyze more carefully the phenom- 
ena which it tries to explain. 

With this statement of the misunderstanding between the two 



334 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

positions and of the weaknesses which have attended the usual 
defence of evolution we may proceed to show how the true con- 
ception of it applies to the problem of conscience. We have, 
then, first to consider the nature of the process. 

1st. The Nature of Evolution. — The proper conception of 
evolution is that of the expansion of capacities or the elicitation 
of latent poivers into exercise and predominance over others. In 
other words, it is development, not creation. Any other concep- 
tion of it is sure to give trouble. Nor is it at all necessary to 
conceive it as opposed to creationist theories. It will confine 
itself to the task of showing how complex phenomena originate 
from the combination of elements whose "origin" does not con- 
cern it, and how certain phenomena become able to supplant the 
influence of others, but not how they originate from those con- 
taining none of them. It can leave the " origin " of elements 
and latent capacities to creationist doctrines. If there are any 
new elements introduced into the world order from time to time 
it can concede a place to creation ; if not, it may go about the 
work of showing how the complex and progressive order of the 
world represents a modification of relations and combination 
among these elements ; that is, showing the derivation of complex 
phenomena without discussing the origin either of the elements or 
of the process. The vulnerability of creationist theories lies in 
the facts that they have generally distinguished wrongly be- 
tween natural and supernatural causes, ignored or denied the 
law of continuity, and assumed the simplicity and underivabil- 
ity of phenomena that were or are complex and derived from 
the union of simpler elements. Their strength lies in their 
ability to account for factors which the evolutionist conceded 
were not found in the antecedents of the phenomena to be ex- 
plained, and had they, on the one hand, been more adept in 
proving the simplicity of the new factors under dispute they 
might have won their case, and had they, on the other, confined 
their argument to the fact that all phenomena must have some 
other causes than phenomena alone they would not have come 
into conflict with evolution. Had the evolutionists, on the 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 335 

other hand, observed that they had endowed natural causes with 
creative powers, limited by the creationist to supernatural 
causes, as is indicated by their concession that natural causes 
could produce what was new and not contained in them- 
selves, they would have abandoned an antagonism to theories 
which was based upon a false antithesis between natural and 
supernatural causes, and confined their task to showing how ex- 
ternal influences elicit the exercise and development of latent 
capacities and functions, whether native or acquired. This 
would have left them free to discuss evolution without condition- 
ing it upon the truth of metaphysical empiricism. It would have 
made the doctrine the complement of general nativism and the 
mere expression of orderly progress, which is more the result of 
combining existing forces and functions than it is the addition of 
new data to lower orders of nature. The total result may 
appear new, but its elements may not be new. This is only to 
say that evolution may give new form to its products, but not 
new matter. The importance of this conception will appear in 
the sequel. 

Now, the comprehensive definition of conscience which we have 
adopted conduces to this view of the problem, because, instead of 
limiting it to a simple phenomenon like constraint or reverence, 
we make it the whole mind in relation to moral objects, compris- 
ing intellectual, emotional, and desiderative elements in a certain 
combination and application. Mr. Spencer has a clear conception 
of this in his general doctrine of evolution, and at the outset of 
his genesis of moral consciousness, but he spoils the whole effect of 
this by virtually conceding the unique and simple nature of the 
phenomenon, and by admitting the creationist postulate. But if 
we adhere closely to the true conception of evolutions that it is 
merely the expansion of latent capacities, or the combination of 
them to produce an apparently new datum, we shall understand 
how conscience may, on the one hand, gain an efficiency which 
gives it supremacy among the impulses to action, and on the 
other, be on the whole a new capacity compared with lower or- 
ders where the combination of its elements does not exist. Keep- 



336 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

ing this limitation of the problem in view, we may restate the 
process of evolution and show just what influence is exercised by 
the agencies invoked by the empiricists in general. 

In the first place, association of pleasures and pains, and the 
imposition of various restraints on the individual, do tend to 
develo]), but not to create, conscience, leaving for the present the 
question how the individual came to have it. But taking the 
individual early in his life, or early in the stage of civilization 
when there seems to be no conscience present, and certainly none 
that prevails in directing the will, these influences elicit mental 
states ; they do not create them, but elicit them, as the expression 
of existing capacities, which states exercise an influence among 
the others. The memory of a past pain with a particular act avails 
to inhibit the repetition of the act, of a pleasure, to initiate its 
reoccurrence. Elementary restraint is involved in this, even when 
no arbitrary restrictions from other wills are supposed. It is the 
restraint or constraint of more long-sighted adjustment. This 
feeling would not occur but for the consciousness of two alterna- 
tives between which the choice must be made. The prevalence 
of the alternative involving the remoter good is so much in favor 
of its future prevalence until habit may overcome the feeling of 
constraint by removing the competition of the more proximate 
good. This constraint is more evident when political, social, and 
religious authority is used to limit liberty and restrain desire. 
They produce a conflict between alternatives that nature might 
not effect. It is quite as natural a phenomenon as any that 
may have been prior to it, but as long as no dangerous conse- 
quences, near or remote, are involved in the course of action first 
suggested, there is no need" for the existence and influence of re- 
straint, and it can be elicited only by the consciousness of con- 
flict between two alternatives with the necessity of choosing for 
protection, or for realizing an ideal, that one which involves the 
least sacrifice. This constraint, which takes the name of obliga- 
tion when there is any appreciation of the value and importance 
of its object, is quite as natural as any desire opposed to it. It is 
that function of consciousness which expresses the necessity of ad- 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 337 

justinent as against a free desire, and external influence only in- 
cites it to act ; it does not create it, but only offers it an opportunity 
to become efficient. Habit, again, in adjustment to the altered 
environment sustains this efficiency until its momentum wholly 
suppresses the temptations of immediate good, and conscience 
thus becomes the expression of reason, the voluntary and willing 
service of duty. 

This description of the growth of conscience seems only to be 
a repetition of the argument for experientialism, and so would 
seem merely to reinstate the very position we criticised. But in 
reply to this intended objection it is most important to remember 
that the difference between the two doctrines is very great. Ex- 
perientialism is a theory of the " origin," genesis, the creation 
of conscience, as a new function of human consciousness, but 
what we are here defending is not its " origin," but the occasion of 
its acquiring efficiency, which is voluntary though the alternatives 
offering the occasion are externally produced. There is a vast 
difference between the " origin " or genesis of conscience, espe- 
cially when that phrase will be taken to imply the " origin " of 
the faculty (transcendentally) rather than the " origin " of the 
specific consciousness of right and wrong (phenomenally), and the 
creation of an emergency where the efficiency of conscience is 
necessary for protection or self-realization. The latter position 
evades all the confusion, entanglements, and controversies of cre- 
ationist metaphysics, while neither denying nor affirming its doc- 
trine, and leaves external influences to the limited function of 
creating conditions for the manifestation and increased efficiency of 
conscience, and not for producing either its capacity or its phenom- 
ena. For where the capacity does not exist external restraints 
will act in vain, so far as the elicitation of conscience is con- 
cerned, and if this exists its phenomena are its own production 
though the occasion for them is or may be of foreign origin. They 
become more or less permanent through exercise, as habit estab- 
lishes the line of least resistance until less moral impulses are 
atrophied and suppressed. The tendency thus becomes moral 
with its reflected elements of moral consciousness, though it is 



338 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

only their efficiency and not their functional character which ex- 
ternal agencies condition. 

Now, the process of evolution, as applied to the race, simply 
takes whatever efficiency a function may have acquired through 
experience, and transmits it as a native propensity to the next 
generation, where it will require less influence from the outside 
to incite it to action. The process of strengthening it may thus be 
continued instead of beginning the work, as in the prior gener- 
ation. The advantage from the process is that the whole of the 
work does not have to be done over again, and each successive 
generation begins where the last left off, until finally the order of 
supremacy among the impulses is reversed from the non-moral 
to the moral, the former being as inefficient as the latter were 
in the beginning. This is what is meant by the " origin " of con- 
science, the development of efficiency in mental states little dis- 
posed or qualified at the outset to compete vigorously with egois- 
tic and non-moral feelings. It is the creation of a condition or 
emergency where the better functions of consciousness must ex- 
ert themselves in behalf of the individual's protection, and welfare, 
then the formation by habit of a permanent and fixed tendency, 
its transmission by heredity to the next generation, and the estab- 
lishment of its universality by natural selection and the survival 
of the fittest. This assumes, however, that all the elements are 
given, and* that evolution has only to give them efficiency and 
permanency. 

We have distinguished between experientialism and evolu- 
tionism by saying that the former pretends only to explain the 
origin of the phenomena, the latter the faculty of conscience. 
This implies that the faculty is given in the individual, at least 
as he is known to-day. But evolution intends to account for 
what we now find in the individuals of the race, and the ques- 
tion is now raised whether new faculties can be originated by 
the influences mentioned any more than states of consciousness. 
The answer to this will depend upon the conception we take of 
conscience as a faculty. If it be a simple faculty limited, say, 
to the sense of duty, regret for error, or reverence for law, and 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 339 

the capacity for feeling what either of these express, then we 
affirm that even evolution could not originate it, assuming that 
it was not given primordial^, as a germ at least, in the funda- 
mental data of consciousness. But if we conceive it as a complex 
faculty or set of co-operating functions its case may be very dif- 
ferent. Take it as defined, namely, as the mind in its relation 
to moral phenomena, the mind conscious of and moved by moral 
objects, as intellect is a name for mind as conscious of phenom- 
enal events, and we may well admit the possibility that there 
could be latent in this general consciousness a number of capac- 
ities which experience and heredity might, if given time, unite 
in efficiency and value so as to give an apparently new power. 
Suppose the cognitive, emotional, and desiderative elements to 
exist among lower orders of creation, but only in an isolated 
condition, each directed to an object of its OAvn, and never com- 
bined upon an object known as moral, then conscience can be 
said not to exist though its components exist in solution. Thus, 
a being might cognize a series of acts which were cruel and yet 
not have those feelings which accompany or constitute a sense of 
cruelty ; or a being might have a sense of cruelty from acts 
injurious to self and yet not realize associated feeling or connec- 
tion with the same act upon others, or even cognize its similarity. 
Its sympathies or social instincts may not be called into co-opera- 
tive action, and hence the complex idea of right and wrong, in- 
volving intellectual, emotional, and social elements of a high order, 
combined to produce a certain direction to consciousness, would 
not exist. If external influences ever produced a condition in 
which these proper elements entered into conjoint action and con- 
tinued so, and reflection with association occupied itself with this 
condition, a nascent habit of action diverted in the direction of 
morality might very w T ell originate, and once initiated the various 
interests, subjective and objective, might increase its momentum 
and efficiency until the cohesion of the several elements received 
that consistency which looks like a simple faculty, and which, 
from the prominence and value of one of its functions, like duty, 
might be confused with it. If we assume, therefore, that in man 



340 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

this cohesion has reached the required fixity, as well as complex- 
ity, and that it is absent in the animals, we can well say that 
there is a difference in kind between them ; that man has a con- 
science and the animals have not. The difference, however, is not 
in the elements, but in their mode of action. In man they are 
conjoined for a common object and are conscious of themselves. In 
animals they are either not co-operative at all, or if co-operative 
as instincts, they are not conscious or reflective. Hence con- 
science becomes a name for a group of co-operative functions 
which, so far from being evolved from that which contains none ' 
of it, is evolved from elements, each of which does not contain it 
as a whole, but which compose it. Evolution thus does not pro- 
duce these elements, but it produces their complex and harmoni- 
ous action. It produces the faculty as a complex whole as well 
as its efficiency, but without adding any new function to exist- 
ence. Its influence is to consolidate existing functions, not to 
create them. But in consolidating them it produces a whole 
which is not found in lower orders, though we may find various 
imitations in the partial organization of it casually and perhaps 
temporarily. It is only in the consolidation of existing elements, 
however, that we can, on the one hand, maintain a true concep- 
tion of evolution and, on the other, suppose that the resultant is 
in any way like a new quality. We may thus draw a qualita- 
tive distinction between different orders of existence which 
enables us to satisfy our feelings about the vast difference which 
morality establishes between man and animals ; but as already 
remarked, it is a qualitative difference in the total, and not in 
the elements, and this is the only sense in which evolution can be 
said to originate conscience as a faculty. 

2d. The Importance of the Theory of Evolution. — To many 
minds the doctrine of evolution has seemed to be destructive of 
ethics. This was no doubt due partly to the reaction against 
creationist theories with their theological associations, and partly 
to its affiliations with purely empirical principles and their latent 
nullification of responsibility. But this feeling after all has been 
a prejudice, which could not justify itself except by rejecting 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 341 

the whole significance and value of education, which is a develop- 
ing process upon the same scale as that we have described, and is 
everywhere lauded for that very consequence. Evolution is 
nothing but education, and education is nothing but evolution, 
while nativism is not opposed to either of them. All parties have 
appreciated the value of education and the theory of it, and 
should not take umbrage at evolution which only explains for 
the race what education does for the individual. But the propo- 
sition of it came when it gave a rude shock to certain preju- 
dices and seemed to threaten the very foundations of morality. 
It is true that it does modify the theory of responsibility, as 
defended in the age of scholasticism. But this is precisely its 
merit. It does not wholly eliminate responsibility; it merely 
modifies the strictness and severity of its application to practical 
life, and this is a most important function in the development of 
human conduct. Let us examine how it does this. 

We have seen two facts in regard to responsibility. First, the 
existence of it in any form whatever is conditioned upon the 
presence of the faculty of conscience at least, and the degree of it 
upon the extent of moral knowledge and feeling. Second, re- 
sponsibility exists in different degrees with different men, accord- 
ing to the fact just mentioned. Now, in order to treat man as in 
any way morally responsible (not causally " responsible ") we 
must assume that all individuals of the class have a capacity for 
moral distinctions and moral feelings. Moreover, we treat him 
as he is, not as he was in the earliest period w T hen conscience 
did not exist as we know it. We may take him as evolutionists 
concede he is, wdiatever his origin or the orgin of his conscience. 
This assumes that he now has moral faculty. Hence to that ex- 
tent we consider all men responsible, limiting the quality, how- 
ever, to the rational stage of his development. But we have 
already admitted that all men are not equally responsible. On 
this matter scholasticism was too severe and rigid. The doctrine 
of salvation and of eternal punishment were in its favor, and these 
influences were reinforced by the democratic spirit of Christianity, 
which made all men equal. It did not see that the only equality 



342 ELEMENTS OF ETHIC 3 

that was defensible was the equality of his relation to objective 
morality, and not his equality in subjective capacities and merits. 
Hence, not distinguishing between these the doctrine of equal re- 
sponsibility was everywhere the only view taken of man, with the 
exception of imbeciles and the insane. All men of any aver- 
age sanity and rationality were adjudged as equally responsible, 
and it was supposed that any weakening of the doctrine meant 
the overthrow of all responsibility. But we have already shown 
that there are two stages of responsibility, one based upon the 
capacity for moral distinctions, and the other upon the degree of 
knowledge and moral sensibility, the last condition varying in all 
degrees. Now, evolution shows how these differences arise, and 
so explains why we should not treat all persons alike in the appli- 
cation of praise and blame. It is, of course, the fact of these 
differences rather than that of evolution which affects the degree 
of responsibility, but the theory of evolution shows how the facts 
come to be as they are, rather than determines their value and 
implication. With the vast differences of original endowment 
which might be expected in a world like the present, with the 
differences of experience, differences of heredity, of natural selec- 
tion, of survival, and reversion to primitive types, and differences 
of condition and environment added to abnormal development — 
with all these sources of variation, we could only expect equal 
differences of responsibility, and it is the limitations upon this 
characteristic which evolution shows that give it its sole value 
to ethics. Wherever it is accepted with its implications there 
must be decidedly more humanity in our consideration and treat- 
ment of men, less adulation of them for their merits, and less re- 
proach for their delinquencies. But it will not alter the correc- 
tive method of discipline, except in the matter of the length of 
time for applying it. Every consideration of evolution points to 
the importance of making the period of punishment indefinite 
and the time of conferring liberty upon the subject of it depend- 
ent upon his moral development under discipline. But it will 
neither tolerate the retributive methods of the past nor encourage 
the substitution of purely preventive measures, except in the worst 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 343 

forms of criminal offence. In all cases, however, its voice is in 
favor of humanity, provided, of course, that we retain morality 
at all, and as the nature and validity of morality does not in the 
least depend upon the fact or truth of evolution, we may well 
suppose that the limitations of responsibility which it shows are 
its title to respect in our judgment of men, and this effect is its 
only value. It is a matter of considerable wonder that its advo- 
cates have not seen this feature of it, but have wholly passed it 
by and concentrated interest upon the doctrine, as if the validity 
of moral principles depended upon its issue. But the only perti- 
nence which it possesses relates to responsibility, and even this is 
only indirect. 

3d. Relation of Evolutionism to Ethics. — There is a wide- 
spread feeling that the doctrine of evolution is one of great im- 
portance to Ethics and that there is even an evolutionistic 
Ethics, or that the whole problem of morality is and must be 
transformed by the conception of development. This thesis we 
shall absolutely deny. At the same time it is not to be denied 
that the discussions and speculations of evolution have as a 
matter of fact very greatly influenced recent ethical controver- 
sies. In fact, the doctrine created so many apprehensions when 
it was first proposed that one of the first effects was to begin a 
thorough reconstruction of Ethics. The activity in this field has 
been very remarkable during the last two decades. More, per- 
haps, has been written upon the subject of Ethics than for two 
centuries previous. But the enthusiasm of the evolutionist and 
the belief that a new principle of Ethics was discovered were 
wholly misdirected. There is not a particle of reason to suppose 
that the real problem of Ethics has been in the least altered by 
evolution and evolutionistic theories. The causes for the actual 
influence exercised by <it upon moral speculations were mainly 
outside the real problem of development. They were two : (a) 
the immense extension of the natural, and (6) the influence of 
the doctrine of the struggle for existence. The first of these 
influences has always been a matter of contention in the problem 
of Ethics and is not peculiar to the theory of evolution. The 



344 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

question regarding how much place shall be given to natural 
conditions, mental or extra-mental, is merely the problem of how 
far we are to act independently of them and to keep them under 
due control, and is not materially affected by the discovery of 
the fact and of the mode of evolution. The theory of develop- 
ment has done no more than to emphasize and extend our con- 
ception of the conditions and limitations under which obligations 
exist. But it has added no new conditions or limitations except 
that of heredity, and this affects only the problem of responsibility 
and not the grounds of morality. The basis of morality remains 
the same whether evolution be true or not, so that the doctrine 
can only intensify the old controversy as to man's responsibility 
by its vast extension of the natural limitations under which he 
acts. But it is absolutely unrelated to the one fundamental 
question as to what is right and why it is right. The second 
cause is more interesting. This, as we saw, was the doctrine of 
the struggle for existence. Evolution referred the whole progress 
of the world to this one law with the survival of the fittest and 
the inheritance of their qualities, while moralists had been in the 
habit of referring it to growth in morality. The struggle for 
existence as everywhere exhibited was only a warfare between 
contending parties. It represents the ghastly spectacle of uni- 
versal destruction, the triumph of mere force, and the embodi- 
ment of everything which is opposed to the ideal. Under it the 
universe seems one vast system of shambles for the destruction 
of the weak and the preservation of the strong. The only right 
respected in such a system is might or power. But it is appar- 
ent to every one at a glance that if any morality is to be main- 
tained at all, it cannot come from an imitation or application of 
the struggle for existence and the indiscriminate warfare which 
it exhibits. Morality consists rather in putting limits to the 
struggle for existence, and hence cannot be derived from it. Mr. 
Huxley has finally admitted this in a lecture which has created 
a widespread interest for the very reason that it concedes all that 
moralists had ever charged against the capacity of evolution to 
furnish a foundation for Ethics in the only principle which the 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 345 

doctrine needed for its special purpose, namely, the struggle for 
existence and the survival of the strong. If the idea represented 
by this fact, as we observe it in the various orders of existence, 
be the one from which duty and obligation are to be derived 
we should certainly find no reason for justice and benevolence. 
The struggle for existence is worse than a travesty of morality. 
It is the very antithesis of it. If we should change the concep- 
tion of this struggle so that it did not represent a savage conflict 
between the weak and the strong, there would be less objection 
to it as a principle. But this would be to admit more in the 
lower stages of development than the doctrine had dared to sup- 
pose in its effort to show the evolution of the moral from the 
non-moral. It would assume that the process was more than a 
struggle between the strong and the weak and thus undermine 
the efficiency of the very principle upon which evolution was 
founded, except that we so changed the conception of it as to 
render perfectly absurd all the noise that has been made about 
the necessity of reconstructing Ethics. There can certainly be 
no objection to this result. But it justifies the critic of evolution 
and removes all right to place morality where it would be subject 
to the struggle for existence as that has hitherto been conceived 
and represented. Hence the evolutionist must either change his 
conception of the process of evolution to suit morality or he must 
admit that the notion of right and wrong cannot be deduced 
from the process. In either case he cannot suppose that morality 
depends for its basis upon evolution, which in reality has to do 
only with the causes of survival and growth, but not with the 
contents or nature of that whose survival and development it 
explains. If he changes the conception of the process to suit 
the nature of morality, he must admit that the problem of Ethics 
remains as it was before evolution was proposed. On the other 
hand, if the struggle for existence, conceived as a conflict 
between the weak and the strong, be the highest principle of 
evolution, then he must either deny that morality is anything 
more than this or admit that it has no foundation in the prin- 
ciple of evolution. The former alternative is so evidently ab- 



346 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

surd and contrary to fact that not even the evolutionist ven- 
tures to maintain it and he is left to choose either the latter or 
the position that the struggle for existence contains more than 
has been represented of it. Either one of these is suicidal to 
the claim that Ethics is affected in the least by evolution, except 
in the application of the theory of responsibility. 

The primary and fundamental problem of Ethics is the nature, 
grounds, and validity of morality, not its " origin " or genesis his- 
torically considered. The latter is a help, but not a condition of 
its analysis, and aside from this may be thrown aside in the solu- 
tion of the one problem for which the science exists. Ethics 
asks and answers two questions : " What is right ? " and " Why 
is it right ? " Ultimately the answer to both questions must be 
the same, because whatever particular actions are decided to be 
right must have their character determined by the ground upon 
which they rest, the ultimate end which they serve. Hence the 
primary object of scientific Ethics is the highest good, the ideal 
condition or end which it is a duty to realize. After this it is inter- 
ested in determining the particular course of conduct necessary 
for obtaining this end. It is perfectly clear that evolution has 
nothing to do with either of these problems. No matter how I 
may have been evolved, my duty remains the same, my nature 
being what it is, and also it remains what it is whether I have 
been evolved or not. Duties and the ideal are independent of 
that issue. It is no use to say that my duties would have been 
different had the course of evolution been different, for this 
might very well be admitted. But if any duty whatever remains 
under any imaginable process of evolution, it not only proves 
that a given course of it has not originated the duty, but also 
that morality must be independent of the process. Moreover, 
evolution cannot be conceived without reference to a goal or end. 
We cannot imagine it as creating the very end toward which it 
moves. Moral conduct derives its character from the end which 
it serves to attain, and this must exist as an object of conscious- 
ness before any process of conscious action can aim at it. Now, 
evolution must be either a conscious or an unconscious process. 



THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 347 

If it be unconscious it- can have no end in view, but only a con- 
sequence can occur as the sequel of it, and no morality whatever 
is possible in the case. On the other hand, if it be conscious the 
ideal end in view is not a creation of the process, and the deter- 
mination of it must be independent of evolutionistic methods, 
except that we take evolution to mean what its most strenuous 
advocates seem to imply that it is not. We may talk about the 
evolution of the ideal, if we mean by it the development of its 
efficiency and the domination of it in consciousness. But this is 
not the creation or origination of it. The ideal only begins with 
the conception of morality in its quality or intension, and leaves 
to evolution the process of developing its quantity or extension, 
increasing its efficiency and enlarging the conscious range of its 
application. But the whole question as to what constitutes 
morality, its grounds, and validity remains absolutely untouched 
by the method of development. . We have already found that 
morality must be given in some degree as a datum before evolu- 
tion can do anything for it or with it. We have to determine 
the ideal end of conduct in order even to know whether evolution 
involves progress or not. The process evolves both good and 
evil alike, and if we were to condition morality upon the prin- 
ciples of such a process we should have to abandon it for the 
lack of a criterion to distinguish between right and wrong. 
Hence the value of the ideal, which is the ground for justifying 
special actions, must be determined by some other means than 
the fact- and the method of evolution. 

Mr. Sidgwick aptly distinguishes between three different 
problems, only one of which the method of evolution represents. 
They are : (a) the existence, of moral judgments, which is a psy- 
chological question of fact and must be determined by direct in- 
trospection supplemented by observation of similar phenomena in 
others as language and signs may indicate them ; (b) the origin 
of moral judgments, which he calls a " psychogonical " question, 
involving the application of purely historical methods ; and (c) 
the validity of moral judgments, which is the ethical question and 
which must be determined in the same way that the validity of 



348 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

any truth is determined. " Indeed, it seems clear," says Mr. 
Sidgwick, " that the question as to existence ought to be settled 
before raising the question of origin, since it is premature to 
inquire into the origin of anything before we have ascertained 
that it actually exists." Then it is just as true that validity is 
independent of " origin," because if it were not, we should have 
to say that the theory of gravitation, of Copernican astronomy, 
of the tides, and of any other set of phenomena could not be true 
until we knew how it originated. The matter of origin is inter- 
esting as establishing the time when responsibility can be applied, 
but it does not condition the truth or the value of that which is 
originated. Hence the doctrine of evolution has but a very sub- 
ordinate value in important questions of Ethics, and all the noise 
made about its revolutionizing the subject is simply sound and 
fury, signifying nothing, and conceals a most astonishing igno- 
rance behind the mask of knowledge, while the only service of 
the doctrine, its relation to the application of responsibility, 
goes absolutely unnoticed. 

References. — Muirhead : Elements of Ethics, pp. 125-150 ; Murray: In- 
troduction to Ethics, pp. 43-58 ; Bowne : Principles of Ethics, pp. 124-163 ; 
Darwin : Descent of Man, Chapters IV. and V. ; Spencer : Principles of 
Ethics, Vol. L, pp. 64-150 ; Calderwood: Handbook of Moral Philosophy, 
pp. 95-130 (Fourteenth Edition) ; Alexander : Moral Order and Progress, 
pp. 297-316, 353-368 ; Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., pp. 
360-424 ; Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, Chapter III., pp. 93-130 ; 
Fiske : Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II., Part II., Chapter- XXIL, 
pp. 324-366 ; Wundt : Ethik, pp. 88-231, 369-372 ; Schurman : The Eth- 
ical Import of Darwinism ; Andover Review, November, 1886, pp. 449-466 ; 
April, 1888, pp. 348-366 ; New Englander and Yale Review, April, 1888, 
pp. 260-280; September, 1890, pp. 2G0-275 ; Christian Thought, August, 
1891, pp. 14-38; Mind, Vol. I., pp. 334-345. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY. 

I. INTRODUCTORY. — The definition of terms has thrown 
much light upon what the human mind means by morality, but 
it has not determined anything in regard to the nature of the 
highest good or ideal end of conduct. It was merely assumed 
that there was such an ideal. We have now, however, to enter 
more carefully into the analysis of morality in reference to its 
grounds, or the reasons for its being what it is and for our obli- 
gations to respect it. In determining its nature, we have said 
that two questions have to be answered, and a third question in 
regard to our knowledge of it. They are : (a) What is right? (6) 
Why is it right ? and (c) How do we hioiv it is right ? The an- 
swer to the first question gives the particular actions which are 
right, or are considered as right, such as respect for life, honesty, 
purity, benevolence, courage, etc. The answer to the second 
question gives the reason in some proximate or ultimate principle 
or end for their morality, the ground upon which they rest, and of 
course ultimately the one principle to which they are reducible. 
The answer to the third question gives the process of experience 
or knowledge by which I am made aware of this morality. It is 
only the latter two questions that give rise to any theories about 
morality. The answer to the first is merely a statement of 
matters of fact or matters of belief. But the structure of the 
human mind has never been satisfied with a mere assertion of 
what is regarded as right. Interests, both scientific and social, 
demanded that we know why such conceptions were accepted 
and how we came to have them. On the one hand, the scien- 
tific impulse asks to have a reason for all the various duties 

349 



350 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

imposed by men on each other, if for no other purpose than to 
satisfy curiosity about their reduction to unity. On the other 
hand, social interests demand that no obligation be imposed arbi- 
trarily and without any recognized principle in the nature, rights, 
and knowledge of the person upon whom it is placed. Hence 
arises some theoretical explauation of what morality is and how 
we come to know it. But there has not been any unanimity of 
opinion on the matter. The attempt to explain why the various 
duties of common life are binding, or why the practice of them is 
a virtue, has resulted in a great variety of theories, each compet- 
ing for acceptance and supremacy, and very much unsettling the 
problem of the nature of morality. In order, therefore, to under- 
stand the complexities of the question and trj^e relation of these 
various theories to each other, before undertaking any direct solu- 
tion of the problem itself, we must classify the theories that have 
attempted to assign the ultimate principle of morality. 

II. CLASSIFICATION OF THEORIES— We shall undertake 
in this section nothing but a classification of the various ways in 
which the question, why certain actions are right, or why they, 
should be clone, has been answered, and leave the discussion of 
them until afterward. We shall be obliged to state the method 
or principle upon which each theory rests, which will be in a 
measure a definition of it. But it will not be necessary in the 
classification to go farther. 

The most comprehensive division of theories which can be 
recognized, is that which we shall call the Subjective and the Ob- 
jective theories. This division coincides with Mr. Martineau's 
division into psychological and unpsychological theories. 

1st. Objective Theories. — Objective theories of right are those 
which seek the ground of morality outside of the person upon 
whom it is binding. They represent some form of external 
nature or authority and place the reason for right outside of all 
control, acceptance, or consent of those who must obey. But they 
take two forms, the Ontological and the Nosological. 

1. Ontological Theories. — These theories represent the 
foundation of morality as found in the nature of being, the con- 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY $51 

stitutiou of ultimate reality, and again appear in two forms, ac- 
cording as they are theistic or naturalistic. We shall call them 
the Theological and the Cosmological theories. 

(a) The Theological Theory. — This theory places the founda- 
tion of right in the nature of God. Its chief object by those who 
have supported it has been to give it a firmer and more lasting 
character and greater authority than if it were founded in 
human nature, which seems to be constituted by so many conflict- 
ing impulses as to make it of doubtful value as a judge or basis 
of right. Hence, assuming that God represents the Absolute, it 
was designed in that way to give absoluteness and eternity to 
moral law, while also indicating the personality of its authority. 
The theory is metaphysical in its character and is apt to con- 
ceive morality as a thing apart from the intelligence which is to 
accept and obey it. Instances of it are Hodge and many scholas- 
tics. 

(b) The Cosmological Theory. — This doctrine places the foun- 
dation of right in the nature of things. This view is contrasted 
with the theological theory in the attempt to give moral law an 
impersonal source and authority. It arose in opposition to 
sophistic doctrine, and endeavors to hold that moral distinctions 
are eternal and binding even upon God. It avoids the phrase- 
ology of the theological theory in order to avoid any implica- 
tions that might connect moral law with arbitrary power. It is 
not essentially opposed to that theory, but hopes to give a more 
impersonal expression to the basis of morality. The best illus- 
trations of the theory are Plato, Cudworth, and some minor 
writers, probably including Price and Clarke. 

2. Nomological Theories. — Nomological theories of moral- 
ity found it in some way upon the flat of power, the arbi- 
trary creation of will. They refer morality directly to mere 
authority, while the theory referring it to the nature of God only 
invokes authority indirectly. In the nosological theories moral 
distinctions are supposed to have a beginning in time and that 
the nature of the world might have been without any relations 
or phenomena that we call moral. Hence they subject morality 



352 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

to the fiat of arbitrary power, and are divided into two classes, 
according as this power is divine or human. We shall call them 
Theo-volitional and Political or Conventional theories. 

(a) The Theo-volitional Theory. — This theory refers the ground 
and authority of morality to the will of God, as distinguished 
from His nature and in its pure form admits or rather affirms 
that this will has supreme power to create and uncreate moral 
distinctions. It opposes the power of man to do the same on 
the ground that it is finite and that whatever he is able to do 
must be traced to the creative will of the Deity. The doctrine 
arose in pre-sophistic times, when there was the habit of tracing 
everything to the gods and has been continued by men who 
hoped thereby to exalt the divine by refusing to admit any 
limitations to divine power. The exponents of it are Jonathan 
Dyniond, some scholastics, and pre-sophistic writers. 

(b) The Political Theory. — This theory founds moral distinc- 
tions upon the will of man ; not upon the will of every man, but 
upon that of the ruling power, with "or without the consent of 
the subject. It was a doctrine designed originally to explain 
the origin and authority of positive laws and institutions, and not 
to assign the abstract foundation of right and wrong. But the 
irresponsibility of the monarch or ruler made it practically an 
account of the ultimate source and authority of morality, this 
being interpreted as not having any obligations beyond the 
power of the executive to enforce it. It was maintained by the 
Sophists, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. 

2d. Subjective Theories. — This class of theories traces the 
foundation of moral distinctions to the nature of the reason in 
the person upon whom morality is binding. They are, therefore, 
contrasted with the objective point of view in this important 
particular, that the subject's own nature is the first thing to be 
taken into account in order to establish any responsibility what- 
ever, or the liability to praise and blame. They wholly elimi- 
nate the idea of authority as external power, or if they retain it 
at all do so under the idea of legitimacy. They are also 
opposed to the objective theories as psychological are opposed to 



THE THEORIES AXD NATURE OF MORALITY 353 

metaphysical doctrines, and are divided into two subordinate 
classes according as right is determined by the end which it at- 
tains or by the way it is known. They are the Teleological and 
the Gnosiological theories. 

1. Teleological Theories — Teleological theories measure 
right and wrong by the ends sought. Reference to an end is the 
meaning of the word teleological, and hence we intend by it to 
describe all those views which estimate conduct with reference, 
not to external powers or authorities, nor to the nature of ex- 
ternal existence, but to the ends and consequences of it. They 
do not look at conduct merely as action in the abstract and as 
something having intrinsic moral qualities apart from its relation 
as a means to something else, but only as an intermediate agency 
for attaining or preventing the attainment of the good. If the 
end be good, the act is right ; if the end be bad, the act is 
wrong. But teleological theories divide upon the question as to 
what the good is. Some make it pleasure or happiness (excel- 
lence of feeling), others virtue or perfection (excellence of being). 
Hence there are two classes of teleological theories, Hedonism and 
what I shall venture to call Moralism. 

(a) Hedonism. — Hedonism (Greek rjdovrj — pleasure) de- 
notes the theory which makes pleasure the ultimate end of con- 
duct. Sometimes the term is used to denote only that view which 
makes the end sensuous pleasure, and hence contrasts with Eu- 
dcemonism, which is sometimes used to denote the theory based 
upon intellectual pleasures. But this distinction serves no other 
purpose than a historical one. It merely describes the contro- 
versy that turned partly upon what was presumed to be the 
original meaning of the Greek term for pleasure (}}3ov/j), which 
many of the philosophers of the early period, not having carried 
analysis very far, limited to the pleasure of sense, and partly 
upon the distinction between Aristotle's doctrine and the Ethics 
of the Sophists. But Aristotle meant ivelfare by ivdaijiovioc 
and not pleasure or happiness as feeling, and we should not con- 
fuse his distinction between moral and intellectual pleasures, 
with the ultimate conception of his system, though it includes 



354 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

both elements. Moreover, even in Greek usage, pleasure 
(f/dovjj) had a general meaning, very noticeable in Plato, 
broader than mere sensuous feeling, and might denote any- 
mental elation or emotion of that type, though probably the 
most frequent use of the term was the sensuous. And again, 
modern usage, both in regard to the generic meaning of the term 
pleasure and that of " hedonic " and " hedonism," justifies the 
application which we intend to make of the term to denote 
every form of theory which applies to pleasure as the criterion 
and end of morality. Hence we shall mean by Hedonism the 
whole class of theories which appeal to pleasure, whatever its 
kind or degree, and in this way contrast it with the class of 
theories which deny the morality of pursuing mere pleasure. 

But the pleasure sought may refer either to that of the subject 
or to that of the object, to the individual himself, or to others 
comprising the family, tribe, or society at large. On this basis 
Hedonism takes two forms according as the pleasure is individu- 
alistic or universalistic, egoistic or altruistic. Hence there are 
two subdivisions of the theory, which we may call Egoism and 
Altruism, or Individualism (ethical) and Socialism. Utilita- 
rianism may be added as combining both of them. Egoism 
or Individualism asserts that all conduct must be judged as 
good or bad according to the consequences to the individual 
subject. Altruism or Socialism, on the other hand, includes 
the pleasure or happiness of others and may require the sacri- 
fice of some happiness on the part of individuals, perhaps 
the minority, to that of others, the majority. The question of 
kinds of pleasure here does not enter into the definition or 
division of the theory. 

(6) Moralism. — Moralism is the type of theories which deny 
that pleasure is the highest good, and substitute some other form 
of excellence which is often expressed by the term virtue as con- 
trasted with pleasure. This virtue or excellence may take two 
forms, excellence of being and excellence of will. Accordingly 
we find two forms of Moralism, which we shall call Perfectionism 
and Formalism. Perfectionism is the theory which makes per- 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 355 



fection the highest good and foundation of all virtue instead of 
pleasure. Formalism is the theory which makes good-will the 
highest good instead of pleasure. It demands nothing but 
obedience to the sense of duty or categorical imperative and the 
keeping of consequences out of view. The theory was held in 
its purest form by Kant. 

2. Gnosiological Theories. — The term gnosiological is de- 
rived from two words (yiyvooaKoo, to know, and \oyo$, dis- 
course), and is here used to denote that class of theories which are 
concerned, not with the nature, but with the knowledge, of mo- 
rality, namely, with the origin of our ideas of it. These theories 
divide upon the question whether our conception of morality is 
native or acquired, a priori or a posteriori, intuitive or empirical. 
Hence there are two forms of gnosiological theories, which we 
shall call Intuitionism and Empiricism. They are in effect the 
same as those which were discussed under the problems of Con- 
science. Intuitionism holds that moral ideas are native and im- 
mediate objects of perception to all rational minds. Empiricism 
holds that they are derived by experience. 

The following is a tabular review of this classification : 



Objective 



Subjective 



Ontological 



Nomological 



Teleological 



Gnosiological 



Theological = The Nature of God. 
Cosmological = The Nature of Things. 
Theo-volitional = The Will of God. 
Political = The Will of Man. Convention. 

{Egoism or Individualism. 
Altruism or Socialism. 
Utilitarianism. 
Perfectionism. 
Formalism. 
General. 
Particular. 



Moralism 



Intuitionism 



E m pi ri ci Sm {«— ar _ 



It will be observed in this classification that we have made no 
place for evolution. After what has been said about the rela- 
tion of that doctrine to Ethics it should be apparent why we 
have not given it a distinct place in the scheme. In the first 
place, however, as usually maintained, the theory is a complex 



356 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

one involving several of the points of view in this classification. 
It is partly cosruological in its' conception of the problem ; partly 
teleological, being usually utilitarian, but sometimes perfection- 
istic, and sometimes both, and partly gnosiological in that it is 
always empirical. In the second place, after defining it as 
properly occupied with the origin of morality and of moral con- 
ceptions, we must shut it out of a place in all but the last class 
of theories which recognize only the origin of the conceptions of 
morality, not its nature. Hence, evolution as a general theory 
cannot stand in this scheme, but it is partly represented by em- 
piricism. 

We have also to remark the place given to utilitarianism, 
which may have its individualistic or egoistic and its socialistic 
or altruistic side. We have here made it co-ordinate with the 
other two. This is not because it necessarily excludes both, but 
because its historical character has been altruistic, while admitting 
that utility, the great principle of this theory, may apply to the 
individual as well as to society. But the fact that utilitarian- 
ism has always stood opposed to the selfish view of life, which is 
the only conception that can oppose egoism to altruism, justifies 
our setting aside what may be called individualistic utilitarian- 
ism and using the terms " utility " and " utilitarian " as refer- 
ring to the good of the whole, including the individual, and not 
to the good of the individual alone, nor to the good of the ma- 
jority alone. We shall see farther reasons again for this 
procedure. 

As the classification stands, however, it is intended to compre- 
hend all the existing points of view in regard to morality. We 
have not divided them in any way to make them mutually ex- 
clusive, but only as historical development has defined them, 
and may discover something about their various relations as the 
discussion continues. We shall give but a brief examination to 
the first two great classes of theories and reserve the most of the 
discussion for Hedonism and Moralism, while referring students 
and readers to the chapter on the origin of conscience for the 
treatment of gnosiological theories, 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 357 

III. EXAMINATION OF GENERAL THEORIES.— In this 
discussion we shall take up only the Ontological and the Nomo- 
logical theories, and dispose of them as briefly as possible. We 
must find what place they occupy in the discussion of Ethics and 
determine their merits and demerits. 

1st. The Ontological Theories — As already explained, the 
theories bearing this characteristic are concerned with the ulti- 
mate foundation of morality in the very nature of the Absolute, 
whether it be regarded as personal or impersonal. They oppose 
all suppositions that moral distinctions are merely accidents in 
the course of the world and capable of being asserted and nulli- 
fied at pleasure. In that sense both the theological and the cos- 
mological points of view may be true at the same time. Ulti- 
mately all things that are a constitutional part of the world and 
ineradicable in it, are and must be referred in some way to the 
Absolute ; and it makes very little difference whether we regard 
it as personal or impersonal, so far as the mere reference of 
morality is concerned. This is only to say that both of these 
theories must be true in some sense in all cases, no matter what is 
said about other theories. The criticism to be made against both, 
however, is that neither of them solves the problem of scientific 
Ethics, which is rather to provide the end of conduct which will 
subordinate all other things to its attainment than to settle the 
metaphysical ground of morality, which at all hazards must be 
found in the Absolute. This is apparent in the fact that skepti- 
cism of the divine existence simply shatters all power in the theo- 
logical theory, while it leaves untouched the natural desire to 
determine the highest good. Ethics has to do with the summum 
bonum, and not with the moral nature, of the Absolute, and 
hence though it is true that its metaphysical affiliations, as those 
of all the sciences, connect it with the Absolute and with the 
metaphysics of the Absolute, the question of the highest good 
does not. Moreover, to insist on adopting the theological theory 
prior to the formulation of any practical rules for life, is to shift 
the whole controversy over into theology, requiring the settle- 
ment of both God's nature and existence before we could talk 



358 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

about the possibility of inducing skeptical men to be righteous. 
There is a ground upon which moral theory can stand without 
contradicting the theistic view and yet without conditioning 
morality upon the acceptance of it. This is the only rational 
course to be taken where the main object of Ethics is, first, 
to settle the highest good, and second, to furnish a practical, 
rather than a metaphysical, basis for morality. Precisely the 
same remarks can be made in reference to the cosmological 
theory. It has the same merits and defects as the theological 
view, and must be treated in the same way. It evades equally 
with the theological position the real issue of the question, 
though it is also true, and hence it may be dismissed without 
controverting it. 

2d. The Nomological Theories. — As already defined, these 
theories base morality upon the arbitrary agency of creative 
power, namely, upon will of some kind. The one objection to 
such theories is that morality cannot be a creation of will without 
involving a denial of the moral character of the will or agent 
who thus creates it. The universal conception of will is that 
it is subject to moral law, and what is not so subject to it is 
not will or personal at all. To make God independent of 
moral law, and able to make anything, even wrong, moral, is 
not only monstrous, but is a distinct abandonment and con- 
tradiction of theism. Nor is it any help to such a theory to 
make God's will perfect or an expression of his nature. For 
this may be true ; but it abandons the nomological for the onto- 
logical doctrine, which it is the purpose of the nomological to set 
aside. Moreover, to make his will perfect is to admit that this 
moral quality is not a creation of the will ; for it cannot create 
itself. Hence it is essentially absurd to suppose that will, 
whether finite or infinite, can serve as the basis of morality. In 
addition to fatal criticisms of this kind, nomological theories are 
encumbered with the objectionable implications of arbitrary 
authority exerted to coerce obedience against the dictates of rea- 
son and conscience. They were put forward in times of political 
or ecclesiastical tyranny in order to frighten men into subjection 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 359 

to bad government, and nothing remains to support them but a 
desire to do God a false honor, on the one hand, and justify 
despotic government, on the other. 

But while the theories are not an adequate explanation of the 
moral law and of its origin, they may have an important thought 
concealed in them and not even detected by their advocates. 
Taking up the theo-volitional doctrine first we can say, that 
while the will of God is not the ground of morality, it may be a 
good reason for obeying it. Assuming that God exists and that, 
according to the moral law which He recognizes, He commands 
respect for it, then that command is a reason for obeying, but 
not a ground for the nature of the law. If this is what the 
theory wishes to express there can be no objection to it. But 
unfortunately this has not been its language or its intention. It 
has sought to exalt the power of God upon the assumption of a 
false notion of infinite power, and can deceive none but small 
thinkers. Then taking up the political or conventional theory 
the argument against the capacity of the human will to create 
or serve as the basis of morality is an a fortiori one. No one but 
the advocate of the most absolute despotism, whether monar- 
chical or democratic, could seriously make such a claim. Indeed, 
we may safely leave to the overwhelming revolt of mankind 
against arbitrary power the refutation of such a theory, and not 
give it any serious attention. But while convention cannot 
originate morality or moral distinctions, it can do much to make 
them effective. Convention always appeals to reason, rightly or 
wrongly, to justify the application of power to enforce a certain 
course of conduct, and thus acknowledges a prior moraHaw to 
its own positive enactments and determining their character. 
But it does not create that law. Will may enforce the moral 
law, but it cannot create it. It may render it efficient, but it 
cannot be the basis of it. This determines the limitations of all 
nomological theories. 

IV. CRITICISM OF HEDONISM.— As already defined hedon- 
ism is the theory which bases morality upon pleasure. It takes 
its various forms according to the object which gives the pleasure. 



360 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

and hence this may be high or low in character. -But since the 
only form of hedonism which has received any special develop- 
ment is utilitarianism we may give the most attention to that 
conception of it. A few observations, however, preliminary to 
that view are necessary in order to clear the ground. We shall, 
therefore, notice briefly the theory of egoism. 

1st. Egoistic Hedonism. — -It will not be the hedonistic aspect 
of this theory, but the egoistic, that will receive present attention. 
There is a striking ambiguity about the term "egoism" which 
must be cleared up before contrasting the theory by that name too 
distinctly with utilitarian hedonism. The term may denote (a) 
exclusive reference to self in conduct, or (b) reference to self 
while not conflicting with the happiness of others. The former 
conception if legitimated would lead to the sacrifice of society or 
others to the individual, and means that selfishness is the crite- 
rion of morality. This is so palpably absurd that the theory can 
have no footing whatever in that sense and is universally con- 
demned because what is moral involves the conservation of social 
order and a sacrifice on the part of the individual of all that 
does not admit equal liberty and rights on the part of others. 
On the other hand, it is quite as absurd to insist that a man 
should have no reference to himself whatever in the attempt to 
attain the ideal, and hence moralists admit that a man should 
have reference to himself in his conduct, but assert that he 
should not have reference to himself alone; and if egoism 
meant merely "reference to self" without implying anything 
about sacrifice, either of others or of self, it would not con- 
flict with utilitarianism. But it is only in the selfish sense 
that the term describes a theory opposed to all conceptions of 
morality whatever, and as this point of view is universally 
condemned there is no use in giving it any serious attention. 
The only form of hedonism about which any controversy cen- 
ters is that of utilitarian hedonism, which intends to avoid 
the distinction between egoism and altruism altogether as op- 
posing conceptions and to comprehend the proper aspects of 
both. 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OE MORALITY 361. 

2d. Altruistic Hedonism. — This conception also has an 
equivocal import. It may denote action (a) exclusively in refer- 
ence to others and with the sacrifice of self, or (b) in reference to 
others without any sacrifice of self. The absurdity of the former 
demand, namely, that the individual must sacrifice always and 
everything in order to be moral, is so apparent that the only 
form of altrusism which can be recognized as rational is the sec- 
ond, which insists that a man should include a reference to oth- 
ers in his conduct. But this will not shut out a direct or indi- 
rect reference to himself, and hence the egoistic and altruistic 
position can be united by shutting out selfishness, on the one 
hand, which involves an unfair sacrifice of others, and unfair 
sacrifice of self, on the other. We might even say that the 
only difficulty with the two theories is found in taking either of 
them in its exclusive sense. That is, conduct exclusively egoistic 
and exclusively altruistic does not come up to the ideal standard 
of morality, where all individuals must reap the same rewards 
and have the same obligations. The only conception, therefore, 
which can satisfy the mind is that of universal hedonism, which 
we shall intend to be expressed by the theory of utilitarianism. 
This conception shall be intended to express the common points 
of merit in both the others, so that the question of the reference of 
conduct to personality may be disposed of and we can turn 
attention wholly to the element of pleasure in it. 

3d. Arguments for Utilitarian Hedonism. — As utilitarianism 
should be defined, it is the theory which makes utility the crite- 
rion and end of conduct, while utility is to be measured in terms 
of pleasure. AVe here assume that the reference to persons is 
understood and that the only utilitarianism which can stand any 
criticism at all must be that which tries to lay down rules for 
the good of the whole, and not for the good of the individual at 
the expense of others, nor for the good of the majority at the ex- 
pense of the individual. This question once disposed of we have 
left only the more important matter, whether the hedonistic posi- 
tion, or the pursuit of pleasure, can be an adequate determination 
of morality. The supreme question is whether the hedonistic end 



>362 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

of conduct is the true one or not. We must examine carefully 
both sides of it. 

1. The Fact that all Men Seek Pleasure as a Good. — 
The extent to which men seek pleasure and avoid pain is an un- 
questionable fact, and it would seem to have no exceptions even 
in the case of martyrs and self-irumolators, who in spite of their 
protestations seem to have some other than the immediate pleas- 
ures of the present world. They endure pain for some other 
reward which can only be called pleasure or happiness of some 
kind, if only for the satisfaction of living and dying for a princi- 
ple. But apparent exceptions like these aside, it is a fact that 
happiness is so universally regarded, whatever our theories about 
it, that it would seem to be the one end to which all men subor- 
dinate everything else. 

We use " pleasure " and " happiness " rather synonymously ; 
not because a distinction between them cannot be drawn for 
certain purposes, but because the theory does not require it. 
" Pleasure " is often used to denote the agreeable emotion of the 
moment, following any particular action, while " happiness " is 
supposed to denote the calm and general satisfaction of life as a 
whole, which will be made up of adjusted and rational pleasures. 
But as happiness can only be the " sum of pleasures " or a series 
of adjusted satisfactions, it is still essentially " pleasure " in its 
nature, and we do not require at present to distinguish between 
present or momentary and deferred or permanent pleasures. 
Consequently the question here regards only the kind of thing 
desired, not the time, durability, or amount of it. Happiness 
and pleasure may, therefore, be used interchangeably. 

It hardly requires proof that men are largely influenced, if not 
wholly so, by pleasure in their conduct. It is so apparent to 
the most cursory observation that a denial of it, or an apparent 
exception, at once appears as a paradox. We have only to look 
around us, appeal to the experience and observation of every one 
we meet, and examine the ideals which men pursue, to see that 
pleasure is at the bottom of it all. Men seek wealth, honor, fame, 
power, knowledge, and cultivate art all for pleasure. Did these 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 363 

possessions not conduce to happiness they would be scorned. It 
is only because they are indispensable means to a desired form of 
happiness that they prove attractive to man. Even the miser, 
who seems to seek wealth on its own account, does it for pleasure, 
only his pleasure is not found in spending and consuming it in 
vain show and waste, but in the consciousness of security and 
power against certain kinds of misfortune. The contest of life is 
for security against pain, and mankind looks ever to the resources 
which obtain the most satisfaction and prevent the most pain. 
"Nature," says Bentham in an eloquent passage, "has placed 
mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and 
pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, 
as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the 
standard of right and wrong, on the other, the chain of causes 
and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all 
we do, in all we say, in all we think ; every effort we can make to 
throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and con- 
firm it. In other words, a man may pretend to abjure their em- 
pire ; but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while." 

The argument throughout is intended to be more than a state- 
ment of the mere fact that man pursues pleasure or is under its 
dominion. It assumes or asserts also that everything else is 
subordinated to it. . At the same time it is true that the utilita- 
rian too often fails to distinguish between two distinct things in 
this connection, namely, the question of fact (de facto) and the 
question of right (de jure). He does not distinguish between the 
question regarding what man does pursue, and what it is ideal 
for him to pursue ; between what he does and what he ought to 
do. But in showing what a constitutional place pleasure has in 
his life, and assuming that its nature, as a good, will not be de- 
nied, he simply goes on' to discuss the question as if actual prac- 
tice decided for us the ideal goal of human endeavor, and so in- 
tends to recognize, by his description of man's actual conduct 
and the subordination of all ordinary ends to happiness, the 
ideal and ultimate nature of pleasure as the good. The argument, 
then, is that experience so reflects the direction of all man's subor- 



364 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

diDate ends to pleasure that we cannot but recognize it as the one 
end which determines the merit of conduct related to it. That 
is to say, men, rational men, pursue wealth, or fame, or honor, not 
for their own sake, but for the happiness or contentment which 
they bring, either directly or indirectly. It is only the irrational 
man that will make wealth an end in itself. In fact, such a 
man only appears to do so. His real object is also pleasure, 
and except for the means used he could not be distinguished 
from the spendthrift. Wherever we turn we find all paths of 
human endeavor leading to the same goal, happiness, and this 
end does not seem to serve any remoter purpose. On this ac- 
count the utilitarian contends that it must be the highest good 
and standard of virtue, or of the quality of conduct. 

2. The Commensur ability of Pleasures. — One fact es- 
sential to utilitarian hedonism is the supposition that pleasures can 
differ only in quantity or intensity, and not in quality or inten- 
sion. Bentham and Epicurus both held that pleasures are all of 
the same kind, and that the differences we remark on the occasion 
of them are differences in the objects that cause them and not in 
the feelings themselves. That this is essential to the theory will 
be made clearer when we come to criticise it, but for the present 
we must remark that unless they are the same in their ultimate 
quality there is no possibility of measuring and comparing them 
so as to determine when one is to be sacrificed for another, involv- 
ing a greater amount of good. The utilitarian must admit that 
there are actions bringing pleasure which he must avoid and con- 
demn, and hence the fact raises the question whether it is possible 
under such conditions to regard pleasure as a criterion at all. But 
the utilitarian saves his position here by remarking that pleasure 
has various degrees of intensity, purity, duration, certitude, propin- 
quity, and fecundity, all of which enable us to compare one pleasure 
with another and to reject that of the lesser degree for the 
greater. Thus the reason that intemperance is condemned in 
spite of the pleasures connected with it, is that these pleasures are 
not pure, or productive of future pleasure. They are mixed with 
pains either present or future, or are less intense than the pleas- 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 365 

ures of temperance. On the other hand, the pleasures of temper- 
ance are purer, more intense, more durable and more prolific of 
future pleasure than intemperance. In the same way theft, mur- 
der, unchastity, inveracity, and any other wrong may be treated. 
Whatever pleasure they give is offset by the superior, intenser, 
purer and more prolific pleasure of their opposite virtues, which 
condemns them on that ground. The right lies in the direction 
of the purer and more intense pleasure, and all actions can be 
compared in this respect. They can be measured in terms of the 
quantity of pleasure in which they result, and this being the 
only common element of the various objects of desire, and deter- 
minable in its degrees, it offers the one scientific explanation and 
end of conduct. 

3. The Effect of Pleasure and Pain on Life. — The 
effect of pleasure and pain on life has received a new form of 
statement and significance from the doctrine of evolution, though 
the general character of it is as old as speculation upon their im- 
portance. This can be brought out by a glance at the various 
conceptions of pleasure and pain. Plato and his contemporaries 
generally regarded pleasure as an incident in the harmony of 
healthy functions, or the index of healthy activity and pain the 
accompaniment of the opposite kind of action. We have here the 
general conception that pleasure is the result of healthy and ad- 
justed action and pain of unhealthy and unadjusted action. Aris- 
totle adopted the same general notion, and it was followed up by 
general acceptance until we find it again in writers like Spencer 
and Hamilton. The latter defines pleasure as " the reflex of un- 
impeded and pain the reflex of impeded energy." Spencer holds 
that "pleasure increases life and pain decreases it." In all 
these there is the same notion, that pleasure results from right 
and pain from wrong / action, so that they can very well be in- 
dices of what is proper and improper. What Mr. Spencer shows 
in his exposition of evolution is the enormous influence exercised 
by pleasure and pain upon the development and the perfection of 
life. Pleasure is a condition which conduces to higher and better 
exercise of function ; pain represses it. Experiments seem to 



366 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

show this effect, and every one is familiar with the fundamental 
maxim of the physician, which is that the patient must be kept, 
not only from physical pain and in pleasant physical condition, 
but also from mental pain and in a condition of cheerfulness and 
hopefulness. This is employing pleasure as a curative agent and 
shows how important a place it occupies in the economy of life. 
Illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely, but they would all 
have the same import, while the generalizations mentioned are 
sufficient to mark the value of pleasure and pain as objects of 
consciousness and to strengthen the claim of the utilitarian that 
they are the criteria and ends of conduct. 

4. The Practical Efficiency of Pleasure and Pain as 
Motives to Conduct. — The practical importance of taking 
pleasure and pain into account is very apparent in the use which 
is and can be made of them to affect right conduct. Even the 
opponents of utilitarianism concede that the most effective way 
to get duty performed is to reconcile it with happiness. If a man 
can be made to see that duty is less hard than he imagines ; that it 
will compensate him in the attainment of more and better pleasure 
than the sacrifice of the moral law, he will be more easily induced 
to follow it. It is in this way that moralists, no matter of what 
school, always endeavor to secure right action, and in doing so, 
concede the superior power of the utilitarian ideal as a practical 
agent in the attainment of what is right. But whether they con- 
cede this or not, every day observation reveals the extent to 
which it is true, that pleasure and pain may be appealed to as in- 
centives to right action, the one of pursuit and the other of aver- 
sion, the pursuit of the right and aversion to wrong. The whole 
social fabric rests upon this principle. Rewards and punishments 
would mean absolutely nothing and be wholly inefficient if this 
principle were not true. The adjustment of pleasures and pains 
by law to meet the various conditions of character, temper, and 
habit is only the regulation of conduct by the hedonistic measure 
as opposed to any other conception of moral influence. In fact, 
the utilitarian conception of morality is simply that it conceals 
this reference to pleasure and pain by being too often identified 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 367 

with the supposed conflict between duty and interest, which is 
in reality but a conflict between two interests of a different de- 
gree or order. However this may be, the whole social and 
political organism is based upon the infirmity of every other mo- 
tive to action than pleasure and pain, and shows that what we 
call morality must be expressed in terms of happiness before any 
strong inducements can be felt to realize it. 

5. The Inconsistencies of Opponents to the Theory. — 
Among the first of these inconsistencies is the extent to which 
the bitterest antagonists of utilitarianism are influenced by the 
love of pleasure and fear of pain in the common affairs of life. 
A man eats an apple and is governed by its agreeable or dis- 
agreeable taste in selecting it. If he goes to a picnic, on an ex- 
cursion or a holiday vacation, he takes no account of anything 
but the pleasure which he expects. If such actions resulted in 
pain to himself or to others, he would condemn them and never 
think of taking into account any conception but pleasure and 
pain. Everywhere but in our theory of morality we thus show 
a supreme regard for pleasure and aversion to pain. We never 
think of the inconsistency between our practice and what our 
transcendental theory demands or seems to demand of us, and 
if called upon to make ourselves consistent the theory would be 
the first thing sacrificed. All the little affairs of life, too often 
supposed to be outside the sphere of morality, are so involved in 
judgments regarding pleasure and pain, that once their deter- 
mination by that quality, and at the same time their morality, 
are conceded, they become too much identified with the criterion 
of happiness to escape dependence upon the utilitarian code. 

Another inconsistency supports the same conclusion. The 
most uncompromising opponents of utilitarian hedonism in 
modern times have been the religious and theological minds. 
The majority of them, however, and we might say religious lay- 
men universally, while speaking with contempt of the pursuit of 
pleasure, have quite uniformly regulated their lives by the hopes 
of happiness hereafter. Their opposition to pleasure turns out 
to be only an opposition to certain pleasures of this world and 



36$ ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

not to pleasure in itself. They love the pleasures of the next 
world as much as any one could the pleasures of this. To oppose 
utilitarianism they would have to' insist that pleasures differ in 
kind and not merely in degree, and that the pleasures of the 
hereafter are wholly unlike those of the present world in kind. 
But this would wholly shut off a comparison and practically 
imply that the term " pleasure " could not apply to the two 
states at the same time, while the manifest conclusion from 
applying the same term to the two conditions would be that the 
pleasures were the same in kind, and this would only conceal 
their utilitarianism in their doctrine of immortality while in- 
veighing against it in language. This inconsistency, however, is 
not chargeable to the religious mind previous to Bentham and 
Mill, because it was identified with the utilitarian principle. 
But ever since utilitarianism came to be the property of the 
skeptics, the antagonism developed in the religious field was 
carried over to the moral, and this inconsistency appeared with 
it. Happiness of the hereafter was exchanged for that of the 
present, while the identity of principle involved in both was 
concealed in the difference of conditions, but not in the state of 
consciousness to be realized. Hence the supreme value placed 
by the religionist upon eternal happiness, and his unwillingness 
to sacrifice it at the behest of any theory of virtue demanding a 
disregard for immortality, were only proofs that the moral ideal 
was that of the utilitarian ; only that it embraced eternity 
rather than the present, and purchased at the expense of the 
present in most cases. Moreover, if most men were asked what 
their ideal object in existence was or would be, they would no 
doubt spontaneously answer with the religious mind that it 
would be a condition of supreme happiness or bliss of some kind. 
They would differ in regard to the objects that would produce it. 
The old Norseman would long for Valhalla with its mead and 
phantom battles, in which phantom heroes are forever hewing 
down shadows which only rise again to renew their ceaseless 
and bloodless conflicts. The mythological Greek would have 
the return of the golden age, or the enjoyment of the garden of 



THE THEORIES AXD XATCRE OF MORALITY 309 

Hesperides, or some Elysium which would be free from care and 
toil aud pain. The Christian would have the New Jerusalem, 
paved with gold aud enriched by every adornment that ever 
fascinated an Oriental imagination, or he might refine this purely 
materialistic conception into a spiritual communion with God, 
the bliss of a mind wholly at peace with its maker. The Indian 
would express it in the happy hunting-ground beyond the grave, 
and the Australian savage, according to Mr. Spencer, realizing 
the value of English money and the beauty of English complexion, 
would desire " to w T ake up in the resurrection a white man and 
to have plenty of sixpences." But in all of these there is one 
common element which measures for each individual and class 
involved the value of his ideal, and that is the magnified and 
purified happiness which all would expect to realize in that 
state. The utilitarian principle is at the basis of all of them, 
and any supposition of different motives is only an illusion. 

4th. The Arguments against Utilitarian Hedonism. — The 
criticism of utilitarianism will involve the consideration of some 
views which were not considered in the arguments for it, notably 
the views of Mill and his school, because their position, while in- 
tended for the defense of the doctrine, were really an abandon- 
ment of it. This will be brought out in the proper place. 
Moreover, we must also remark an important fact in the discus- 
sion which has considerable bearing upon our mode of treating 
the subject. It is the difference between the demands of science 
and those of " common sense " in the question whether pleasure 
is the highest good or not. There is often a feeling, fostered by 
utilitarians themselves, that there is some prejudice, religious, 
moral, or aesthetic, against the doctrine of utility, presumably on 
account of its low and materialistic associations. This is, no 
doubt, true in many cases, even deplorably true when utilitarians 
are not to blame for it. But it is only an accident of the contro- 
versy, not any essential part of it. The scientific question, which 
can be conducted with the utmost calm and freedom from preju- 
dice one way or the other, is simply whether it is a fact that 
pleasure or happiness is the only ultimate end of human action. 



370 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

The practical value of taking it into account will always remain, 
no matter what decision we come to about the above question. 
Science wishes to know exactly what is true in the case, and 
after this is determined it may give its attention to the various 
practical interests and sympathies involved or affiliated with the 
general question. Careful analysis may show truth on both 
sides, and for that reason we ask dispassionate attention to the 
arguments against the doctrine, not necessarily with a view to an 
ignominious overthrow of it, but with the object of showing just 
what is tenable and what is not tenable in the theory. The 
main purpose or sequel of our criticism, therefore, will be analysis. 
The scientific question, besides the general analysis which it 
demands, also asks for a careful discrimination between several 
distinct problems in the case, which are too often confused with 
each other. These can be expressed in the following manner : 
(a) Do men as a fact always seek pleasure or happiness and 
avoid pain as the sole object of volition? (b) Granting that 
pleasure is the universal object of pursuit, does this fact prove 
that it is an object of obligation or that it ought to be sought ? 

(c) Assuming that happiness is the object which ought to be de- 
sired, can any such a criterion of right be applied in practice ? 

(d) Assuming, finally, that it can be applied in practice, does the 
conception yield any such a code of morality as civilized man 
has actually adopted ? 

All that requires to be said of these propositions is, that if the 
first be affirmed, additional proof is required for the second. 
Every theory of ethics must determine the ideal, what ought to 
be, not merely the real or what is. If men universally seek 
happiness only, and if happiness be the ideal end of action, then 
there is no use in laying down an obligation to pursue it, because 
a duty implies either the possibility or an inclination not to seek 
a given end. If men actually seek it, there is nothing for ethics 
to do. On the other hand, to deny the first question is to cut up 
the utilitarian theory by the roots. For if pleasure is not the 
only end pursued by man, it is not the only ideal, and may be 
purely subordinate to something else. The coexistence of any 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 371 

other object of volition than happiness, actually pursued, must 
nullify utilitarianism, because it is conditioned upon the ideality 
of pleasure alone, whether acturlly sought or not. The second 
proposition also shows that much more has to be done than to 
show that men universally seek happiness. They may do this 
and yet may not seek the morally ideal. The utilitarian must 
prove the morally ideal nature of happiness and not merely the 
universality of man's pursuit of it. The third question brings 
up a problem that we have to consider, and it is whether pleasure 
is a practical criterion of virtue, even if we assume that it is an 
ultimate good, or a necessary element of it. The conception 
may be so abstract as to prevent it from having any direct appli- 
cation to concrete and individual cases. The last question 
implies that even if the previous assumptions are proved in the 
second and third questions it is still open to consider whether 
they coincide with the actually existing code of morality. The 
question is not whether happiness ic ideal and practical as a cri- 
terion of virtue, but whether it is the sole element of the code 
which we recognize as moral. All these various points of view 
show that there is a very complex problem before us, and not to 
be solved merely by pointing to universal practice. 

There is another difficulty which the critic of utilitarianism 
has to meet, and it may as well be frankly acknowledged. It 
must not be shirked by any one. Opponents of the theory have 
always admitted that happiness is a necessary accompaniment of 
virtue. While they have spoken very firmly about the duty to 
disregard consequences, they have readily enough granted that 
the reward of virtue included a happiness much higher and bet- 
ter than the reward of vice, and even when proclaiming that 
virtue is its own reward they would not deny that it is necessa- 
rily, or at least in a ' perfect world, accompanied by pleasure. 
Now, if happiness always be a concomitant of virtue, if it always 
be the natural consequence of morality, it is impossible to give 
any objective disproof of utilitarianism. As long as pleasure in- 
variably accompanies any other fact we cannot prove that it is 
not the object of volition. It might not be the real object of 



372 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

desire and choice, but its presence with that object would leave 
nothing but the testimony of the individual consciousness to 
prove what the true object was. In the majority of cases this 
testimony would undoubtedly favor pleasure, while those who 
denied it would be open to the suspicion either of illusion, of 
ignorance, or of obstinacy in favor of a pet theory. The only 
absolute proof of moralism as opposed to utilitarianism would be 
the existence of an ideal condition, or the ultimate issue of duty, 
without any accompaniment of pleasure. This being the case, 
and all persons acknowledging that happiness is the natural con- 
sequence of duty, the only arguments against utilitarian hedonism 
are those which are more or less indirect and which appeal to 
the individual moral sense for evidence as to what the real moral 
ideal is, and as to what satisfies reason and conscience in the 
matter of the highest good. With this understanding of the 
problem, and of the fact that the main object of the criticism 
must be analysis, we may proceed to give the arguments against 
utilitarianism. 

1. The Indefinite and Abstract Nature of Pleasure 
as A Conception. — One of the main difficulties with pleasure 
as an object of volition is that the term has become so general 
and abstract as to describe the consequences of actions without 
regard to their moral quality. No one is ever certain what 
pleasure we mean when we undertake to measure conduct by it. 
The term applies equally to the consequences of vice and virtue 
in many cases. Intemperance as well as temperance may have 
its pleasures, and perhaps it is only an a priori opinion that pain 
must inevitably result from an act of intemperance. But, how- 
ever this may be, pleasure is so indefinite in its meaning, even 
when supposing that it is always the same in kind, that as a cri- 
terion of right we cannot distinguish between the merits of eat- 
ing and the merits of patriotism, or the merit of taking a holiday 
and of saving some one from drowning. We distinguish between 
the worth of noble statesmanship and the enjoyments of a picnic, 
but the mere word pleasure will not enable us to determine that dis- 
tinction. It describes the same phenomenon in both cases. The 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 373 

pleasure qua pleasure is the same in each of them, and we have to 
specify some added quality or qualification of pleasure in order 
to explain our preference of one over the other of these acts. 
The term is purely an abstract one. It describes a feeling or set 
of feelings without regard to the incidents, causes, or objects con- 
nected with it, while morality cannot lose sight of the concrete 
conditions connected with happiness. If pleasure is to be taken 
into account at all, it must be in connection with the particular 
act or object which causes it. It is not any and every pleasure, 
so to speak, but the pleasure of certain actions that we must take 
into account. For instance, it is not the pleasures of malice that 
I can indulge with moral impunity or approval, but only the 
pleasures of respecting human life and rights. Hence the moral 
ideal requires to reckon with more than pleasure in the abstract. 
We have to include the incidents or objects of it as part and par- 
cel of the criterion demanded. They may express some added 
quality other than pleasure, or such a qualification of it as pre- 
vents the term from having any practical application to life as 
we know it. Nor is it any defense to say that the utilitarian 
theory is not based upon pleasure in the abstract, but that it 
means pleasure of a certain purity, fertility, durability, and propin- 
quity, because this only makes the matter more dubious and in- 
definite. These qualities of pleasure are not definable at all. 
No one can say when a pleasure will be pure or fertile or dur- 
able. While this may save the theoretical consistency of the 
doctrine, it only renders it all the more impracticable by adding 
greater indenniteness to the idea upon which it is based, and 
hence does not furnish a specific conception for making the doc- 
trine intelligible and satisfying the demands of morality. Pleas- 
ure is at most the name only for the end or consequence of con- 
duct, not for the means to it, and morality cannot lose sight of 
the means. In taking account of the means to an end, morality 
keeps its attention upon the idea of law, moral law, or a uniform 
mode of action without regard to immediate consequences when 
more important remoter consequences are at stake. Pleasure 
without qualification will not distinguish between them, being so 



374 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

indefinite and abstract as to connote the consequences of any act 
whatever. The moral ideal, therefore, cannot be expressed by 
that term without qualification. ' The utmost that can be main- 
tained is that the highest good must at least contain happiness 
whatever else is necessary to meet the claims of morality. This 
may be true, but it wholly nullifies utilitarianism, which must 
stand upon pleasure alone and without qualification other than 
purity, fertility, durability, etc., which only conceals the aban- 
donment of the one thing necessary to make morality intelligible ; 
namely, a specific conception equal to the quality expressed by 
it. In brief, pleasure or happiness is so indefinite and abstract a 
conception as to supply no practical criterion of virtue, and 
hence requires to be supplemented by some other element in 
order to make the highest good intelligible and practical. 

2. The Incommensurability of Pleasures and Pains. — 
As we have seen, utilitarianism asserts that pleasures differ only 
in degree or quantity and that they are commensurable. On the 
contrary, it may be maintained that, even if they differ only in 
degree of intensity and purity, they are not commensurable in 
any sense that would make happiness a criterion of right and 
wrong. How is it possible to measure the pleasure which one 
man takes in eating with the pleasure another takes in upholding 
the laws? Which will be the more intense or the purer? Ac- 
cording to the utilitarian standard the intenser, purer, and more 
fertile pleasure is to be chosen rather than that with less of these 
characteristics. Well, it may give one man more pleasure to 
steal than to act honestly, and intensity being the criterion there 
is nothing to be said against it. The man who desires it is the 
supreme judge. Nor is it any reply to say that the laws of 
society prevent stealing from being an intense or pure pleasure, 
because these laws have no right to existence until they have 
conformed to the principles which the utilitarian lays down. 
Pleasure being the standard, the laws must not countermine it, 
but must conform to it. Laws depend upon morality for their 
authority and legitimacy, and do not make it, and hence have 
no right to determine the pleasure which is to be their basis. 






THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 375 

Consequently, if pleasure or feeling is to be the standard of what 
is right, it would seem that every man must be his own judge of 
it, because he can be the only judge of what gives him pain or 
pleasure. The gratification of the physical appetites may give 
one man more pleasure than the study of science or art, and vice 
versa. A may prefer vagabondage to honest labor, and B hard 
work and wealth to a life of leisure or idleness. One man's 
pleasure cannot be measured in terms of another's. What gives 
one pleasure will give another pain. Scarcely any two persons 
can be made to agree upon their choice on this account. This 
would indicate that, pleasure being the object of volition and 
standard of right and wrong, every man would be a law to him- 
self, and such a thing as morality binding upon all persons alike 
would be impossible. The fundamental characteristic of moral- 
ity is that it shall be universally binding upon rational beings, 
but with the incommensurable nature of pleasures, as compared 
in different persons, this condition is flatly impossible. Nor is 
the case helped by saying that each man can compare his own 
feelings and determine the purer and higher pleasures, for even 
if this be true, it is not an objective mensuration of pleasures, 
which is the condition demanded. It leaves every individual a 
law to himself, when each man differs from every other, which is 
the very opposite of morality. We can determine the degree or 
quantity of any phenomenon when it displays a given uniformity 
with the causes or objects which produce it, such as the pressure 
of steam, the pressure of the air, the force of gravity, the force of 
impact, the intensity of sensation to some extent, and any other 
result definitely related to its antecedents. But it is not so with 
pleasures, which, besides varying between individuals, are compli- 
cated with all sorts of subjective difficulties if we come to ask 
each man to tell their comparative amounts. No commensura- 
tion is possible which science can respect. The utmost that we 
can do is to describe the choice of one rather than another as a 
preference which is quite as consistent with a difference of kind as 
a difference of degree, and we should not mistake that description 
for an implication of commensurability. It is all a question 



376 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

whether there is any measure for pleasures which can definitely 
determine their rank in comparison with each other; whether 
there is any means apart from individual caprice and taste for 
deciding how pleasures compare with each other. Until there is 
such, the commensurability of feeling is impossible and the utili- 
tarian standard goes by default of ability to meet the demands 
which it makes itself upon ethical theories. 

3. The Fatality of Admitting Qualitative Differ- 
ences between Pleasures. — Bentham did not admit that 
pleasures differed in kind. On the contrary, he asserted that 
they differed in degree only. But mankind have so uniformly 
maintained that the distinction between right and wrong was 
one of kind, and not merely of degree, that Mill, Stephen, and 
other later utilitarians have tried to save the theory by hold- 
ing that pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity. 
Says Mr. Stephen, " even an infant distinguishes between its 
love for its cousin and its love for jam tart." This is a flat con- 
tradiction of Bentham, who quite as clearly and acutely observes 
that so far as the pleasure is concerned there is no difference 
between pushpin and poetry. But this conception was so far 
from coinciding with the qualitative distinction between right 
and wrong, that Mill and Stephen thought to satisfy the mind 
by affirming qualitative as well as quantitative distinctions be- 
tween pleasures. Mill's direct language is as follows : 

" It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recog- 
nize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable 
and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, 
in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as 
quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to de- 
pend on quantity alone. 

" If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality in pleas- 
ures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, 
merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is 
but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to 
which all or almost all who have experience of both give a de- 
cided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 377 

to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the 
two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, 
placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though 
knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, 
and would not resign it for an- qa^titv o? ^frroLhti p$f"*^fe 
which their nature is capable of, we a.e justified in ascribing to 
the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far out- 
weighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small ac- 
count." 

Put plainly, this is simply saying that the pleasures of appe- 
tite are different in kincUas well as degree from the pleasures of 
knowledge, so that the merit of pursuing the latter compared 
with the former depends wholly upon the difference of quality 
in the pleasures. Similarly the moral difference between malice 
and respect, theft and honesty, avarice and generosity, deceit and 
veracity, selfishness and conscientiousness, is the difference in 
quality of the pleasures that accompany them. According to 
this it is not the difference in quantity, but the difference in 
quality of pleasure that distinguishes between the character of 
lying and the character of truthfulness. This seems a very 
plausible solution of the problem, but it is nevertheless an entire 
abandonment of utilitarianism and its principles. The name, of 
course, is retained, but the thing itself is abandoned. We must 
make this clear. 

First, all utilitarianism previous to Mill was based upon the 
notion that pleasure was the same in kind and that the forms of 
it differed only in degree. The adoption of Mill's doctrine of 
qualitative differences was an abandonment of this position. 
Second, in Bentham's theory " pleasure " was a generic term 
comprehending qualitatively every case of its occurrence, and 
actions did not differ in their quality, but only in the degree of 
pleasure and pain incident to them. But in Mill's doctrine 
" pleasure " is not only a generic term, but that " pleasure " which 
determines the right is specific and denotes a quality which is 
not found in the same term generically taken. Now, this view of 
it is a contradiction. If " pleasure " can denote the satisfaction 



378 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

or agreeable feelings that follow actions without distinction of 
kind, then it is not the pleasure that makes the distinction. On 
the other hand, if it be the pleasure that determines the distinc- 
tion between right and wrong, then this term cannot apply to 
tc ( e agreeable ife.Urgs that accompany wrong actions. In other 
words, pleasures cannot have differences of kind. Again, if 
pleasure denotes agreeable feeling wherever it occurs, and with- 
out regard to distinction between moral and immoral conduct, 
then the quality that determines that distinction is other than 
pleasure. On the other hand, if that quality is pleasure, there is 
no difference in kind, and those are not pleasures which accom- 
pany wrong actions. We cannot play fast and loose with the 
term pleasure. We cannot give it a generic and a specific use 
at the same time. We only succeed in duping ourselves and 
others into the bargain. No theory can stand upon an equivoca- 
tion, and this is precisely what utilitarianism attempts to do when 
it talks about the " kinds of pleasure." As a loose and popular 
phrase it may be well enough. But it can only serve as an inac- 
curate substitute for a desired term which shall express pleasure 
plus a quality other than pleasure, if pleasure is to express -the 
whole class of species included under its usual application. The 
true meaning of the term is generic in which it expresses the 
common qualities of a class whose differentiae are other than the 
genus (conferentia). This is putting the case technically, but 
the same may be expressed by saying that pleasure expresses 
what is similar in all the cases in which it occurs, while the so- 
called differences in kind express something other than the pleas- 
ure in order to determine the qualitative distinctions of the 
species. Mr. Martineau expresses this conception of the case 
very clearly and pertinently. His language is worth quoting. 
" If there are sorts of pleasure," he says, " they must be some- 
thing more than pleasure ; each must have its differentia added 
on to what suffices for the genus ; and this addition cannot be 
pleasurable quality, else it would not detach anything from the 
genus; to mark a species at all, it must be an extra-hedonistic 
quality, and each sort must have its own ; and so far as one is 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 379 

j:>referable, as a kind, to another, it is so in virtue of what has 
other than pleasure; and the comparison of them all inter se, 
considered as different kinds, must turn upon their several extra- 
hedonistic qualities. All that they have from the genus is 
quantitative ; and till you get beyond the pleasurable as such, 
quality does not exist." 

4. The Qualitative Natuee of Moeal Distinctions. — 
We have seen that qualitative distinctions between pleasures 
cannot be admitted without giving up utilitarianism, and it re- 
mains to be seen whether moral distinctions can be determined 
merely by quantitative differences between pleasures and thus 
save utilitarian doctrine. If pleasure be the same in kind, as it 
must in order to describe agreeable feeling wherever experi- 
enced, the only differences which can give rise to moral distinc- 
tions, the difference between virtue and vice, must be those of 
degree ; namely, of purity, of intensity, of fecundity, of dura- 
bility, and of propinquity. But it was precisely the conviction, 
so strongly intrenched in the consciousness of mankind, that 
morality represented a qualitative distinction from immorality, 
which induced Mill and others to proclaim a difference in kind 
in pleasures, in order to meet the demands of an overwhelming 
belief. We think this belief is correct and ineradicable. It 
may not be easy to prove, but it has in its support such a degree 
of unanimity as must make any one pause who wishes to deny it. 
Moreover, since pleasure and pain differ in degree and not in 
kind, and since the distinction between morality and immoral- 
ity does not coincide absolutely with this difference,- as it ought 
to do in a consistent theory making pleasure the criterion of 
right and pain of wrong, the impossibility of making different 
quantities of pleasure determine that which ought to be deter- 
mined by pain should be quite apparent to every one. The 
distinction between pleasure and pain must be quite as qualita- 
tive as that between the moral and the immoral, and if so, it is 
impossible to make pleasure and pain their criteria, and at the 
same time to reduce the distinction to differences of quantity in 
pleasure. Nor will it avail to fall back upon the mixed and 



380 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

impure character of the pleasures in some cases, because there 
are instances in which both acts, as the gratification of appetite 
and the pursuit of knowledge, may give pure pleasures, and yet 
a qualitative difference of merit may exist Hence there is noth- 
ing to do but to maintain the utter incompatibility between the 
qualitative distinctions of morality and the purely quantitative 
differences of feeling upon which utilitarianism relies to establish 
them. This conclusion does not exclude the presence of pleas- 
ure as an element of the ideal, but it does exclude that datum 
from being the only and most important constituent of it. That 
is all that it is necessary to establish in order to show tho de- 
ficiency of utilitarian hedonism as an ethical theory. 

5. The Subordination of Pleasure and Pain to 
other Ends than Themselves. — We referred to Mr. Spen- 
cer's doctrine of pleasure and pain in the economy of evolution 
as a fact in favor of utilitarianism, though we were careful to 
indicate that it was rather in favor of taking them into account 
than of making them ultimate ends. Mr. Spencer, however, 
intends his doctrine, that pleasure increases life and pain de- 
creases it, to support utilitarianism. This is an illusion on his 
part. For he wholly forgets that utilitarianism is conditioned 
wholly by the conception that pleasure is the end, the highest 
end of conduct, and not merely a means to an end. But in 
showing that pleasure as a phenomenon of consciousness in- 
creases life, or develops and perfects the organism, physical or 
psychical, and that pain decreases it, he abandons the notion 
that pleasure is the end, and set? up life, the organism, or per- 
fection as the end, while pleasure is a mere means to it. Pleas- 
ure becomes a purely subordinate event in the economy of 
nature ; it may be an important one and to be taken into 
account as an index to the right goal, but it is in that concep- 
tion no part of the goal or end to be sought. It happens to be 
a natural phenomenon which only points the way to an end 
not itself, and which serves to direct the subject when his reason 
may not have informed him of the right. However this may be, 
we cannot consider pleasure and pain as instruments to an effect 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 381 

without giving up the notion that they are the ultimate objects 
of volition. The truth of Mr. Spencer's position is purchased at 
the expense of utilitarianism. Pleasure cannot be both the 
ultimate end of conduct and a means to some other result than 
itself. It can be only one or the other. 

6. General Defects. — There are several difficulties in the 
utilitarian theory which are either corollaries and incidents of 
those alread} T mentioned, or are less important and too general to 
be classified separately and may as well be comprehended as 
general defects. In the first place, while the appeal to pleasure 
or happiness has considerable practical efficiency when duty and 
interest coincide, it gives rise to much casuistry and tampering 
with conscience whenever we are made to feel that its pursuit 
is harmless under all circumstances. Nothing so weakens the 
monitions of conscience as the belief that concessions may or 
must always be made to pleasure in choosing our course of con- 
duct. It is equivalent to offering us two guides who do not 
always go the same way. Then again, this practical efficiency of 
utilitarianism can be very much exaggerated. It has the effect 
of concentrating attention upon the feelings to be satisfied 
rather than upon the way they are to be satisfied ; namely, 
upon the functions of reason and deliberation and the conditions 
of the highest good. When pressed, the theory recognizes these 
elements, but they do not appear upon the surface. Consequently 
it has very little place for what is known as moral insight and 
duty, unless they coincide with happiness, while moralism 
emphasizes these and leaves happiness to be attained without 
aiming at it as the only end to be achieved. 

Still another objection is that utilitarianism diverts attention 
from the conditions of happiness to the feelings, which avails to 
create the tendency to seek pleasure by whatever means it may 
be attained and so to encourage short-sightedness. This is 
apparent from an illustration which will test the theory of 
utilitarianism to the uttermost. It is quite evident that the 
appeal to the individual's happiness is a strong one. But this is 
in constant danger of degenerating into egoism, which no utilita- 



382 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

rian will admit. Even Bentham, in spite of Lis strong individu- 
alistic tendency, insisted that the happiness which should be the 
measure of right must be of the greatest number, and all later 
utilitarianism has been emphatically altruistic in its principles. 
Besides having less practical efficiency than the egoistic form, so 
far as obtaining obedience is concerned, unless the altruistic 
instincts predominate, this form of the doctrine can only mean 
that we should aim at the happiness of others as well as our 
own. This sounds very well and falls into line with our social 
and sympathetic instincts. But both its theoretical and practical 
defects are clearly seen iu modern sentimental charity. The sole 
aim of much modern, as nearly all earlier, charity, was to make 
the beneficiary happy, and it succeeds. But it does not moralize 
the recipient, as all scientific students of the problem have to 
confess. If happiness, however, be the standard of right, there is 
no disputing the morality of indiscriminate charity; for the 
donor is altruistic and the recipient is made happy. Indeed, it 
will not do to say that remoter pain and evil follow such con- 
duct, because the vagabond never is so happy as when he gets all 
he wants without labor, and never so unhappy as when he must 
work. The giver of alms is fulfilling all the conditions of utili- 
tarianism when he aims at others' happiness, and he attains his 
own, whether selfishly sought or not, when he does an act of 
charity. But it is interesting to note that all students of this 
problem, and among them utilitarians themselves, have to 
condemn actions of this kind, and not merely because pain some- 
where and sometime follows from foolish benevolence, but because 
such a course violates the conditions of perfect life. No better 
illustration could be chosen to show that unselfish happiness is 
the end of the agent, and yet has to be condemned as an unmiti- 
gated evil. The fact is that true charity must aim, not at the 
happiness of the person to whom benevolence is granted, but at 
the establishment of conditions under which happiness can be 
won and earned by the beneficiary himself, arid if he will not 
live up to those conditions the pain which follows, so far from 
being an evil, is a good. However this may be, it is not happi- 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 383 

ness wliicli we should aim at, but a certain order which is the 
condition of it to those whose conduct deserves it, and the moral 
judgment in regard to charity is the best illustration of this 
doctrine. 

Utilitarians have often shown an unconscious tendency to 
accept this point of view and to abandon their principles by a 
doctrine which they avow without the slightest trace of their 
knowing what it means. This is another of their defective 
claims. For instance, Mill, Spencer, and Sidgwick agree in 
affirming that although happiness is the ultimate end of conduct, 
we should not directly aim at it. They hold that it can best be 
attained in an indirect manner. In this view virtue consists, 
not in directly aiming at happiness, but in aiming at certain 
forms of conduct and conditions which naturally result in happi- 
ness. This Mr. Sidgwick calls the paradox of hedonism, and 
Mr. Spencer defends it with much care and earnestness. But it 
ought to be apparent to every one that it is a very queer ideal 
or end at which men should not aim, and yet which is the con- 
dition of virtue. All morality supposes that men should aim at 
the highest good ; the moral ideal exists to be sought, to be the 
object of all our aims, and hence it is certainly very curious to 
tell us that happiness is the highest good, and yet should not be 
the immediate object of volition. A good which should not be 
aimed at, but which is to be attained by turning away from it, is 
certainly an anomaly in speculation, and it is certainly a very 
humorous piece of unconscious irony to call such a doctrine a 
paradox ; for it is a great deal more than a paradox. It is an 
absurdity. The highest good is to be directly sought or it is 
not the highest good at all. The trouble with the utilitarians 
at this point is that they are reluctant to abandon the considera- 
tion of happiness, and yet they see that true moral purpose aims 
at something else than happiness, though it does not sacrifice it 
in the last analysis. In asserting this " paradox " the utilitarian 
is becoming aware of the fact that morality has to do with a cer- 
tain order of the world which is accompanied by happiness, but 
is more than happiness at the same time ; but he has not seen his 



384 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

way clear to abandoning the traditional formula of his theory. 
He is too anxious to hug the associations of pleasure while recog- 
nizing the value of aiming at something else. Indirection in 
morality is worse than an anomaly. It is an abandonment of 
the very principle which ethics endeavors to establish ; namely, 
the constant and earnest pursuit of the ideal which is to be held 
directly before the eye of conscience and. pursued on its own 
account, not as an end to be gained by stealth and circumambu- 
lation. A target which is to be hit by not aiming at it is either 
not a target at all or it is a bad reflection upon the character 
and condition of the marksman. And yet utilitarians can be 
found who do not detect the illusion in this conception of their 
case. In spite of it, however, their position is a tribute to their 
natural moral insight which is in most cases better than their 
theory, and which in this instance points to a standard of 
morality quite different from that of pleasure. 

It is at this point that another distinct weakness of the theory 
appears. When we ask a man who is conscientious, who is gov- 
erned wholly by his sense of duty, what his motive is, he will 
be the last person in the world to avow a love of pleasure as his 
passion. He will name anything except pleasure. No doubt 
the consciousness of many, if not the majority of mankind, would 
testify that the motives of their conduct were for happiness, but 
this would be when they were not concerned about the moral or 
immoral nature of their conduct, or when they did not feel the 
pressure of conscience. Persons without any specific moral 
purpose would invariably avow this. But the moment we come 
to a strictly conscientious mind we should find pleasure or hap- 
piness retreating into the background, and the sense of duty, 
which however much it may be accompanied by self-satisfaction 
in the form of happiness, points sternly to an end that keeps 
pleasure out of sight. Hence the consciousness of the normal 
person who is striving to attain morality betrays no traces of a 
direct influence from happiness alone, but shows an ideal order 
of things which, however much it results in pleasure, does not 
have that factor as the only element of its constitution. 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 385 

V. EXAMINATION OF M ORAL ISM— The very common 
feeling that utility and morality are not convertible terms re- 
quires that we try some other couception than hedonism for an 
ethical theory, and the term " Moralism " supplies this want; as 
expressing a unique and distinct idea, embodying all that the 
human mind has endeavored to denote by ideas claiming a line- 
age superior to mere pleasure. Whether the point of view can 
be justified is another question. But there is certainly need for 
a descriptive name for that attitude of mind which is not satis- 
fied with utilitarianism, and the term " Moralism " is the only 
one which will suit the emergency. 

But, as we have already seen, there are two forms of the the- 
ory which are in some respects distinct from each other and 
possess different merits and demerits. We shall, therefore, have 
to treat the subject in terms of these two points of view. They 
are Perfectionism and Formalism. 

1st. Criticism of Perfectionism. — The peculiar nature of 
perfectionism as a theory is that it proposes, on the one hand, 
an end distinct from mere feeling, and on the other hand, an end 
apart from the mere feeling of duty. It shuts out utilitarian 
hedonism by proposing excellence of being as the proper object 
of moral volition. This excellence means the perfection of 
every function of man's nature which is necessary to an orderly 
and ideal world, and thus describes an objective end, while utili- 
tarianism seems rational or plausible only when the end is sub- 
jective, since we found objective happiness as an end to be absurd. 
But perfectionism proposes excellence which may be either sub- 
jective or objective or both, and satisfies the mind's notion of an 
ideal condition which is more than happiness while including it 
at the same time. So much for what the theory is. The exam- 
ination of it must follow. 

1. Difficulties of Perfectionism. — It can be charged that 
the conception of perfection is so indefinite and abstract that it 
is no better than pleasure as a standard of right and wrong. 
This criticism is undoubtedly true, to some extent at least. It is 
possible to conceive ourselves speaking about the perfection of 



386 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

this or that function or tendency which on examination proves 
to be wholly evil. Then as the term does not specify what per- 
fection, or the perfection of any ' particular function, it seems 
to comprehend within its range the perfection of good and evil 
instincts and qualities alike. Apart from what the term usually 
means this is an undoubted difficulty. But the abstractness and 
indefiniteness of the term can be very much exaggerated. So 
far as its meaning is concerned it is not so necessary to specify 
particulars in the case, because when used it applies not to some 
specific junction, but to all functions acting in harmony. This 
makes it a very different term from pleasure, which denotes 
only one element of being or consciousness. Taken in reference 
to any specific function of being, alone, it would be quite as 
objectionable as pleasure. But its real import is not only an 
ideal condition of being, whether of self, of others, or of the 
world, but also includes definitely the notion of a harmonious 
adjustment of all functions in the agent or order concerned. It 
is only the etymological and loose sense of the term that gives 
any trouble ; the historical and logical import of it, as found in 
those who define and maintain the theory, is perfectly clear, and 
that is the realization of an order, subjective or objective, which 
satisfies the sense of the ideal in all the functions of being. We 
admit that the conception still has its indefiniteness, but it is 
only such as must belong to all theories, which require explana- 
tion and definition in detail in order to develop their full mean- 
ing. Nor, in presenting perfection as a superior standard to 
pleasure, do we mean to exclude pleasure from a place in the 
complex object of volition. It is possible to maintain that 
pleasure has criterial (ratio cognoscendi) and perfection ideologi- 
cal (ratio agendi) meaning in the complex matter of conduct, 
and that the two are complementary functions of the same ideal. 
This would save unnecessary antagonism between the two theo- 
ries, and at the same time do justice to the common feeling that 
a state or quality of being is a better representative of the ideal 
than feeling, while not excluding it. 

2. Merits of Perfectionism. — Whatever the difficulties of 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 387 
• 
the idea of perfection as an ethical standard, it has some impor- 
tant merits which commend it very highly in comparison with 
pleasure. They may be summed up in two characteristics, (a) 
Ideality and (6) Objectivity. Expressed in less technical terms, 
they are purity of value and a worth which may be more 
than individual and personal interest. The importance of the 
first of these lies in the fact that no one, not even the utilitarian, 
can object to perfection as an unworthy end to pursue. The 
utmost that the utilitarian can claim is either that perfection 
must be a means to happiness or that happiness is the standard 
by which we determine perfection. But he cannot claim that 
perfection is in any case an unworthy object of volition as can be 
asserted against pleasure without qualification. It stands as an 
unquestioned ideal, and it only remains to show that it is ulti- 
mate and not a mere means to some other end. That it is not a 
mere means to happiness is evident from Mr. Spencer's position 
in regard to pleasure increasing life. In fact, the whole doctrine 
of evolution lays the stress upon development of function, organ- 
ism, or perfection of structure and of tyj3e rather than upon the 
realization of merely ephemeral feelings. It is founded upon 
excellence of being rather than any other end. Happiness is an 
inevitable concomitant of this effect, but it is not the end of it. 
It is one of the incidents of that condition, just as the other 
functions of consciousness are, and which would be better in that 
state than without it, and yet are not the only elements of the 
highest good. Again, however plausible it may seem to say that 
perfection exists for the sake of happiness, and is thus subor- 
dinated to it, it is much more clear that our sense of ideality 
would not be satisfied by happiness without perfection, which 
goes to show that perfection is not merely a means to pleasure, 
but a coexistent element of the ideal, which is made up of neither 
perfection nor happiness alone, but of both of them. We should 
probably not care for either of them without the other. Certain 
it is, however, that the moral ideal would not be complete with- 
out perfection, which only proves the insufficiency of happiness. 
In regard to the second characteristic little needs to be said. 



388 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

Pleasure, we found, could only be a phenomenon experienced 
either by the subject of the act, in which case there is the con- 
stant danger of egoism, or by the person upon whom the act falls, 
in which case the moral ideal is incomplete. But perfection 
involves a condition of things that is not necessarily limited to 
persons, although only persons can have an interest in it. But 
its extra-personal character as a part of the ideal deprives it of 
the exposure to egoism and satisfies the sense of the moral ideal 
by an end which is either wholly disinterested or involves the 
development of the individual so closely with the solidarity of 
the race that there is a perpetual check upon the abuse of this 
point of view. Hence perfectionism is free from the most 
important difficulties of hedonism, while it admittedly presents 
a moral ideal to be attained. 

2d. Criticism of Formalism. — Formalism is expressed in 
the formula " duty for duty's sake," " duty without regard to 
consequences," " obedience to law," etc. In all these it demands 
obedience to the categorical imperative as sufficient to meet the 
requirements of morality. It seems to disregard every other 
end than conformity to the formal law of duty. This law is the 
right direction of the will and does not require aiming at any end 
external to the will itself. Kant was the most celebrated advo- 
cate of this theory, though it has also been the property of most 
intuitionalists and all who make morality to consist wholly in the 
motive of conduct. But Kant states the case as clearly as it can 
be stated. The only absolute good which he would recognize 
was the good will. " Nothing can possibly be conceived," he 
says, "in the world or out of it, which can be called good with- 
out qualification except a good will." What this means is 
apparent when he goes on to show that the will is not good be- 
cause of what it effects outside of itself; that is, not because of 
any end outside of itself, but because of its conformity to the cat- 
egorical imperative or action from the sense of duty. This was 
the reason that he wholly excluded pleasure from the place of a 
moral good. Besides being a necessary object of desire it was 
held to be an end foreign to the will ; that is, not an end which 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 389 

could be freely determined by the subject. Hence it could not 
be an object of moral volition. But the only thing which could 
be a motive to moral action after asserting this limitation was the 
naked moral law, " the idea of law itself," or action from the 
sense of duty alone. No end is to be aimed at but this right 
direction of the will, and Kant expressed his abstract law of duty 
in the formula : "So act that the law of your will can be valid 
as a universal law of legislation." This conception was modified 
as the development of the system progressed, but its earliest 
enunciation was in this abstract form which, when applied, indi- 
cates no material end to be realized except self-consistency. This 
is the reason that the law is purely a formal one and gives rise 
to the point of view as we have denominated it. 

1 . Difficulties of Formalism. — The fundamental difficulty 
with which this theory has to contend is its one-sidedness. It 
seems wholly to ignore every material and practical end of con- 
duct. That the moral law, without regard to happiness, perfec- 
tion, or other object, should be its own end seems worse than a 
paradox and to propose an end only in appearance. That we 
should wholly disregard consequences seems a travesty upon 
moral law. The popular feeling about making morality merely 
a question of motives and nothing else has been very tersely em- 
bodied in the adage that " hell is paved with good intentions ; " 
and it must be confessed that it hardly suffices for our notion of 
morality that a man should do no more than mean well. Good 
will cannot cancel a debt or pay damages for an injury. It may 
be a condition of effecting such action where civil law does not 
act, but merely good intentions will not absolve the agent from 
obligations involving material considerations. Taking human 
life, destroying property, or committing theft under cover of duty 
does not receive much favor from any one, even from the de- 
fender of formal morality. We long ago learned that conduct to 
be moral must have an end in view, and it does not satisfy us to 
say that good motives are the only end to be sought. They are 
desirable, but they are not the whole matter of morality. We 
naturally expect some object other than good will to be attained 



390 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

at the same time. Moralit}^ has an object besides self- consistency 
and right feelings. These may be very good qualities, but they 
do not secure objective right and justice. They evidence noth- 
ing but the goodness of the person or agent, not the goodness of 
his acts externally considered, which is one of the important ele- 
ments of morality. The world is constructed with a view to 
results as well as motives, and hence a formal good will, valu- 
able as it is, does not supply the whole contents of that of which 
morality treats. 

2. Merits of Formalism. — The fundamental difficulty of 
formalism grows out of the ambiguous import of the term 
" morality," which, as we have shown, is sometimes used objec- 
tively and sometimes subjectively. If we cast aside the objective 
import of the term ; that is, its power to denote objective good, 
like order, perfection, others' peace and happiness, etc., we shall 
find a meaning which eludes the criticism that we have just 
made against the formal conception of morality. If morality 
means only the personal and volitional side of conduct, then 
Kant and the formalists are correct, and good will constitutes 
the whole of right action. The doctrine would then be consist- 
ent, whatever we thought of its completeness. But even when 
we concede that morality has to do with the objective as well 
as the subjective, formalism has certain merits which it is worth 
our while emphasizing. 

The first of these merits is the personal side of morality. We 
found in the analysis of a moral act that no act could be 
strictly called moral which did not issue from conscious volition 
and intention. The mere accomplishment of a desired result is 
not sufficient, because, if it were, inanimate and physical move- 
ments might be called moral, and so might unconscious (reflex 
and automatic) actions of the person himself. The same objec- 
tive good may be realized by such actions as by the intentional 
volitions of the subject. But no one for a moment would re- 
gard such actions as moral. All are agreed that to be moral an 
act must be initiated by intelligence and represent conscience 
in some form. This only shows how necessary motives, voli- 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 391 

tion, and good will are to morality. It may be true, as it is, that 
morality is not complete until some end is attained, be it happi- 
ness, perfection, or other object, but it is no less incomplete when 
the good will is absent. So incomplete is it without intelligence 
and good will that it would not receive the name of morality at 
all unless they were present. Formalism, therefore, expresses the 
primary condition of morality. It embodies the whole contents 
of virtue as distinguished from the good, and so indicates why we 
praise an act of good will whatever the consequences, while we 
do not praise an act with good consequences which was not initi- 
ated by good will. It is the personal element of moral conduct 
that determines its characteristic worth. Formalism calls atten- 
tion to that fact. It is perhaps unfortunate and one-sided in ignor- 
ing the importance of consequences, but it is right in maintain- 
ing the personal nature of all moral action and insisting that it 
is the subjective side of conduct which constitutes virtue and 
morality in the highest sense. Motives and volitions are purely 
internal events, though they are directed to the external. But 
as the causal connection between them and external events is 
not invariably the same, and as no man is morally responsible 
for consequences which he does not aim at and which he is not 
conscious of, there is nothing left but to judge the culpability 
and inculpability of conduct wholly from the subjective side, 
though we are justified in taking measures to prevent the mis- 
carriage of motives and to regulate the adjustment of inner and 
outer relations. It is personal agents or personal actions that 
we praise or blame, though we may welcome or deplore the oc- 
currence of others according as the consequences are agreeable or 
disagreeable to us. Praise and blame, however, are accorded 
only to voluntary actions, so that the most important sphere of 
morality lies within the limits of motives and the good will. As 
long as this is the case we shall find the human mind emphasizing 
this side of conduct, especially because there can be no morality 
at all without it, while subjective morality or character can exist 
without regard to consequences or to the question whether the 
objective world is ideal or not. 



392 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

The second merit of the theory is that it establishes a personal 
law for conduct. The attempt to make pleasure without qualifi- 
cation the law of volition will create in the actions of man all 
the caprice which we find in the occurrence of external events. 
Now an act would be permitted by the promise of pleasure, and 
now the same act would be prevented by the prospect of pain. 
It might be safe to steal to-day and dangerous to-morrow. But 
moralism insists that the law of a man's action shall be found in 
his own will. The individual should make duty his guiding 
principle whatever the attainable object at the time: Hence the 
notion of law, regularity, obligation, which the doctrine main- 
tains represents a person of stable character, one whose tenden- 
cies can be relied upon and in whom confidence can be placed. 
We can calculate just what to expect, namely, conscientiousness 
in all his doings, the constant pursuit of an ideal which is inde- 
pendent of the vicissitudes of the world and represents the uni- 
formity of nature in its persistency. We admire such a being be- 
cause of the intrinsic worth of his will. His judgment may be bad 
in the material application of the moral law to individual cases, 
but the most important element is present, namely, conscience 
and good will. When a man aims rightly, when his intentions 
are good, it is an easier matter to inform his intellect as to the 
manner of his actions, than it is to create the good will when the 
judgment is clear and conscience seared. The education of the 
intellect is much easier than that of the will, and is quite differ 
ent in its method. The greater power of the will to resist the 
right than of the intellect to evade the truth attests the greater 
difficulty of moralizing a man than of educating him. But 
when he has once decided to make the moral law an object of 
his will and lives up to it his moral character is settled whatever 
be the mishaps of a fallible judgment, and he has fulfilled the 
main requirement for which morality exists. Merit is personal, 
and in its highest development represents a law of the will 
rather than a law of things, and moralism must have the credit 
of maintaining the primary importance of this element and the 
purely secondary nature of consequences, though they are not to 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 393 

be ignored. It is the morality of character with which ethics 
has to do rather than results. We want regularity, consistency, 
and nobility of purpose in the will as the chief object of moral- 
ity, and when that is attained there will be less difficulty in 
accomplishing that for which utilitarianism stands. One of the 
difficulties of concentrating attention wholly upon the end or 
result of conduct is that we are apt to forget that it can often be 
attained as easily by the wrong as by the right means. We 
may not be far-sighted enough in applying the utilitarian stand- 
ard, and hence if we can show the value of adopting a regular 
form of conduct, as in the long run most free from miscarriage, 
. we emphasize the importance of also keeping the means in view 
as well as the end. This is precisely what moralism effects, and 
the fact establishes its right to a supplementary rank with utili- 
tarianism, if not to a superior place in comparison. 

VI. CONCLUSION. — The criticism of the various theories 
with their merits and demerits suggests the propriety of sum- 
ming up their relations to each other and perhaps of combining 
them. This we think can be done so as to show how each posi- 
tion supplies an important element in the complex result known 
as morality. We concede that pleasure or happiness is a good, 
and it might be even the highest good taken in the abstract. 
But it is not a sufficient guide of itself in the world constructed 
as it is; and, moreover, it is not the only element of the ultimate 
end of conduct. It is rather a criterion of adjustment than a 
measure of the whole good to be ultimately attained. But it is 
nevertheless a datum which the healthy man cannot ignore. 
Utilitarianism is thus justified in the recognition wliich it gives 
to happiness. On the other hand, perfectionism is equally justi- 
fied in maintaining that perfection is an ultimate good. It is 
one-sided when it wholly repudiates pleasure, though right when 
it asserts the primary character of development of function and 
excellence of being rather than merely phenomenal feeling. 
The two positions, however, . should be united. As we have 
already indicated, neither perfection nor happiness, taken alone, 
is the highest good, Both of these combined represent the true 



394 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

state of the case much better, and serve in practice to correct 
the aberrations naturally incident to dependence upon either 
of them. The fact is that the moral ideal is synthetic or com- 
plex, made up of elements which alone cannot satisfy the con- 
ception of morality. Combined in this way the two theories get 
all the advantages and have none of the defects which charac- 
terize them separately. 

But there is still another important element in the problem. 
Theories of ethics usually assume that the whole question regard- 
ing the nature of conduct is determined solely by the end or 
consequence to be realized. This is particularly the position of 
utilitarianism, and is probably quite as true of perfectionism ; 
namely, that the merit of conduct is supposed to be determined 
solely by the end, pleasure, or perfection. This, however, is a 
mistake, which is tacitly admitted when any concession is made 
to the value of motives. If morality were purely a question of 
objective results this w T ould be true. The nature of an act would 
be determined wholly by the consequences and without regard 
to motive. But morality is not wholly a matter of consequences. 
It concerns personality and character. It expresses personal 
worth as well as a condition of things related to that worth. 
"We praise or blame an act only when it originates from an intel- 
ligent source. It must be personal, free, and conscientious in 
order to be moral, and the act, so far as it is personal, is adjudged 
as moral and responsible only in relation to the end or conse- 
quence aimed at, not any consequence outside the intention of 
the subject. Further than this, even when the right end is 
sought the merit of the act is very much affected by the manner 
of seeking it. If the pursuit be instinctive or merely the nat- 
ural and spontaneous prompting of the agent without any con- 
sciousness of the value of the end, or without any reverence for 
it as a moral ideal, however correct the act nmy be objectively, 
it has not the moral merit of an act which represents the rational 
and conscientious volition of the subject. Thus, not only the end 
sought is involved, but also the manner of seeking it affects the 
nature of morality. We have shown this in the analysis of the 



THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 395 

conception of morality where it appeared that there were degrees 
of merit involved. First, there is the consequence affecting the 
act in its objective relations. Then there is the conscious and 
intentional pursuit of an end under the variety of motives known 
as instincts, desires, or natural promptings and without thought 
of the moral imperativeness of it. This is the second degree 
of moral worth. Then the third is action under the moral im- 
perative or sense of absolute duty, which Kant made the 
sole element of morality. "We regard it as only one, but the 
highest and most important of the three elements in it, treat- 
ing morality as a complex and not as a simple product. But 
it is the first essential in it where rationality of the highest 
type is involved and represents a manner of action, the motives 
as the only determinant of character, whatever effect the end or 
result may have upon the matter objectively considered. To 
put the case briefly, therefore, utilitarianism and perfectionism 
assign correctly the objective or teleological determinant of 
morality, w T hile moral ism supplies the subjective element of it, 
the element of personal equation in the case, which, considering 
that morality has mostly to do with personality, must always be 
deemed the most important. Motives and character, the law of 
reason and personal reverence for such a law, are the starting- 
point of moral action and must receive a share of the merit dis- 
tributed by the conception of morality, and hence the manner 
as well as the matter, the form as well as the contents of the moral 
law, enters into our estimate of it. In this w r ay formalism is the 
complementary aspect of the other two theories, the obverse of 
which they are the reverse side of conduct. No one theory, 
therefore, is complete, but taken alone is one-sided, and requires 
the others to supply its deficiencies. This is in accord with 
common sense, which judges of particular cases about as described 
and only gets into difficulty when some theorist unjustly asks it 
to explain its consistency, presuming that there should be but a 
single simple criterion of morality, when in fact it is synthetic or 
complex. 

A general agreement with the position here taken is embodied 



396 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

in Professor Dewey's statement of the case. He also shows how 
hedonism and formalism supplement each other. " The funda- 
mental error of hedonism and Kantianism," he says, "is the 
same — the supposition that desires are for pleasure only. Let it 
be recognized that desires are for objects conceived as satisfying 
or developing the self, and that pleasure is incidental to this ful- 
fillment of the capacities of self, and we have the means of escap- 
ing the one-sidedness of Kantianism as well as of hedonism. We 
can see that the end is neither the procuring of particular pleasures 
through the various desires, nor action from the mere idea of ab- 
stract law in general, but that it is the satisfaction of desires ac- 
cording to law. The desire in its particular character does not 
give the law ; this, as we saw in our criticism of hedonism, is to 
take away all law from conduct and to leave us at the mercy of 
our chance desires, as they come and go. On the other hand, the 
law is not something'wholly apart from the desires. This, as we 
shall see, is equally to deprive us of a law capable of governing 
conduct. The law is the law of the desires themselves — the har- 
mony and adjustment of desires necessary to make them instru- 
ments in fulfilling the special destiny or business of the agent." 
Apart from peculiarities of expression this language is that reason 
and desire, rational law, and the object of desire, hedonism and 
formalism, and we might add perfectionism, which is recognized 
in the above language, must be combined to represent rightly 
the conception of morality as a whole. 

There is one final fact of much interest and importance in the 
case. It is that no other view will satisfactorily solve the so- 
called paradox of hedonism. We found Mill, Stephen, Spencer, 
and Sidgwick defending the strange doctrine that pleasure is the 
highest good and yet cannot be attained by directly seeking it. 
This position was taken in deference to the actual fact that the 
direct suit of pleasure, rather than action according to law or in 
pursuit of perfection, often defeats its own object. Instead of 
seeing in this fact evidence of weakness in the theory, they de- 
fend an ethical contradiction. But as no one denies the right to 
pleasure as a reward of virtue and a concomitant of perfection — - 



THE THEORIES AXD NATURE OF MORALITY 397 

nay, rather all affirm that this is the ideal order of things — we 
may see in the fact a way to recognize in perfection and formal- 
ism combined an end which can be directly sought while attain- 
ing happiness indirectly as a result. What these writers, there- 
fore, asserted in regard to the proper way to attain happiness 
was correct, but it unconsciously sacrificed utilitarianism and 
confirmed the claims of opponents that the primary element and 
end of morality is something else. and pleasure a desirable in- 
cident of virtue ; that even if it is sought, it must not be the sole 
end of volition, and that it is more properly a concomitant and 
result of good will and the pursuit of perfection. Thus the par- 
adox of hedonism when properly solved turns out to be a proof 
of other theories, while they still accord it a place in the ideal 
of ethics as a complementary element of it. 

References. — On the classification of theories there are but few references 
to be given. Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. I., Introduction ; 
Sidgwick : Methods of Ethics, Book L, Chapter VI. ; Murray : Introduc- 
tion to Ethics, Book II., Chapters I. and II. ; Wundt : Ethik, pp. 349-370. 

On the discussion of theories and the nature of morality authorities are 
more numerous. Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., Book I. 
and Book II., Chapters I. and II. ; Dewey : Outlines of Ethics ; Mackenzie : 
Manual of Ethics, Chapters VI, and VII. ; Bowne : Principles of Ethics, 
Chapters I., II., and III. ; Spencer : Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., Part I. ; 
Social Statics (Last Edition), pp. 7-62 ; J. S. Mill : Essay on Utilitarian- 
ism ; Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, Chapters IV. and IX. ; Calder- 
wood : Handbook of Moral Philosophy (Fourteenth Edition), Part L, pp. 
30-95 ; Grote : Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (the whole 
work has a most important bearing upon the problem of morality) ; Green : 
Prolegomena to Ethics, Book II., Chapter II., Book III., Chapter I. ; 
Book IV., Chapters III. and IV. ; Hume : Treatise of Morals, Part I., 
Sections I. and II ; Fowler and Wilson : Principles of Morals, Vol. II., 
Chapter VI. ; Fowler : Progressive Morality ; Aristotle : Xicomachean 
Ethics, Books I. and II., Book VIL, Chapters VL-XIV., and Book X. ; 
Kant : Metaphysic of Morals ; Abbott's Translation, Sections I. and II. ; 
also The Pure Practical Eeason, Book I. ; Alexander : Moral Order and 
Progress, Chapter V. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MORALITY AND RELIGION. 

I. INTRODUCTION.— One of the most perplexing questions of 
recent times has been the relation between morality and religion. 
As long as theological influences prevailed, as they did until the 
modern scientific tendencies against theology made themselves 
felt, there were no difficulties and little difference of opinion. 
But the intellectual and religious changes of the past century 
have greatly modified the needs of thought and practice, and 
consequently with skepticism in the ascendant against the tradi- 
tions of theology, and practical life demanding other than the 
older sanctions for morality, there has been some confusion and 
much effort to reconstruct ethics to suit the intellectual condi- 
tion of the age. On the one hand, we have the religious mind 
telling us that morality depends wholly upon religion, and that 
it cannot exist without the religion. On the other hand, we have 
those who have abandoned theological beliefs, and who yet feel 
the springs of duty as clearly and strongly as others, maintaining 
that morality is wholly independent of religion and may exist 
when religion has been dissolved. A third party reverses the 
order of dependence and makes religion depend upon morality, 
or at least the natural consequence of morality, and a fourth 
party identifies the two, not making either of them dependent 
upon the other, but regarding their true contents as the same. 
This view rejects anything more than morality in the case as un- 
warranted and illegitimate, while the third party holds that the 
relation between the two is such that the man may never go 
beyond morality, but that he cannot be religious until he does. 
These four different conceptions make it very difficult to treat 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 399 

the question without joining in the heat of the general contro- 
versy. Views so radically opposed to each other are not easily 
reconciled. Yet in spite of this fact I do not believe that the 
current confusion on the subject comes from the difficulty men- 
tioned. It is due to very different facts. It originates from the 
failure at analysis of the problem to be solved. There are two 
perspicuous defects in all the discussions which have come under 
my notice. They are : (a) The constant failure to define care- 
fully the nature and contents of both morality and religion before 
comparing them, and (b) the failure to distinguish between the 
historical and the logical, the actual and the necessary relation 
of morality to religion. In regard to the first of these derelictions 
it is remarkable that nearly all moralists leave religion wholly 
undefined in discussing its relation to morality. They assume 
that everybody is clear about its contents, an assumption that is 
wholly unwarranted. The fact is that there are few terms so in- 
definite and ambiguous in their meaning as the term religion. 
There is scarcely any unanimity of opinion in regard to its range 
of application. Sometimes it is not distinguished from theology, 
which is a theoretical and systematic construction of doctrines per- 
taining to the supernatural. Sometimes it is made as distinct from 
theology as actual morality is distinct from the theory of ethics. 
Then, again, even when clearly distinguished from theology, 
sometimes it is conceived as a system of beliefs and sometimes as a 
cult, which, although it implies beliefs of some kind, does not lay 
the stress upon them, but upon worship and ritual. There is in 
these several meanings material enough for an enormous amount 
of confusion, not to say anything of the double confusion caused 
by similar difficulties in the use of the term morality. In dis- 
cussing the relation between this and religion there is often a 
confusion of Ethics as a science with morality as a habit of life, 
when in point of fact the two are as different as the science of 
physics and the practice of engineering. Then again even when 
these are distinguished there is the confusion of the subjective and 
the objective aspects of morality. All these ambiguities are 
sources enough of -difficulty in dealing with the problem. But 



400 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

they are not all. The second defect referred to above in most, if 
not all, discussions of the question very much complicates the 
confusion. It is the failure to distinguish between the actual and 
necessary or the historical and the logical connection between 
morality and religion, and the fallacious tendency to argue from 
the former to the latter. Nothing can be better established than 
the fact that religion and morality, however either or both of 
them may be conceived, have been intimately connected in the 
beliefs and practices of various ages. But this mere fact is no 
proof that they should be connected ; nor does it prove that the 
conceptions in one field are dependent upon those in the other. 
This dependence may be a fact, but it requires more proof than 
the mere circumstance of their historical connection to show 
that one depends on the other. Moreover, also, some illusion is 
caused by the tendency to confuse the dependence of one of them 
upon the other with their mere connection. Coincidence of con- 
tents, however, does not prove that either of them conditions the 
other, while it will be found in the sequel that they do not ex- 
actly coincide in contents. Hence it is no wonder that there is 
so little clear thinking on this question, when the analysis re- 
quired is not even attempted. In the following discussion some 
effort will be made to correct these errors. 

II. CONCEPTION OF RELIGION— In forming our conception 
of religion we have several facts to keep in mind. The first one 
is the various uses of the term ; the second is the difference 
between defining what is or has been, and defining it as it should 
be apart from the incidents which confuse its import ; and the 
third is the question of its origin and development with the con- 
tents of it in this process of evolution. Hence we must resolve 
the matter into the simplest question of which it is possible and 
keep all these various conceptions independent of each other. 
Its definition therefore will involve a careful analysis. 

1st. Theology and Religion. — These two things are too often 
confused with each other, though they are perfectly distinct. 
Theology is a theory about the world and its causes as objects of 
religion, while religion is simply an attitude of mind toward 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 401 

them involving emotional elements. Theology is purely scien- 
tific, philosophic, and intellectual, and excludes all emotional 
considerations from its object. But not so with religion, though 
it contains and implies beliefs of some kind. It is a concrete 
attitude of mind involving both intellectual and emotional ele- 
ments, the latter probably predominating. Theology, however, 
is a form of philosophy, differing only from that subject in gen- 
eral in the conception of personality which it places at the basis 
of all phenomena, and it is perfectly compatible with the non- 
existence of religion altogether. A religion also may exist 
without any theology, though it contains the material out of 
which a theology may be developed. Theology is a reasoned 
system of doctrines, religion is a spontaneous belief and act of 
reverence for the divine, and hence the two things are as dis- 
tinct as speculative philosophy and the common beliefs of man- 
kind, though we often find men contending for theological 
theories as if they had all the value and efficiency of concrete 
religious beliefs and practices, when the fact is that a man may 
be ever so religious without having a theology at all (except 
ev $vva/,iei) and may have a well-developed theology without 
being religious. The relation between theology and religion is 
the same as that between ethics and morality. Ethics is a 
science, morality is life or conduct. The former is the product 
of pure reason, the latter is tinged with emotion, the concrete 
expression of the whole of a man's moral nature. So with the^ 
ology ; it is the product of reason, with the same objects as 
religion, but eliminating the very element that makes religion 
what it is. 

2d. Definition of Religion. — After eliminating the scientific 
and philosophic element as denoting reflection upon religion, we 
shall define religion to be both a creed and a cult in regard to 
divine and supernatural things, taking supernatural here to mean 
whatever is transcendental to direct human experience. It is, 
therefore, both a belief and a mode of worship ; not necessarily a 
ritualistic or external form of worship, but at least a reverential 
attitude of mind involving respect and obedience to a supreme 



402 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

power. It is not enough that there should be a mere belief in 
the divine existence, or in any other dogma, in order to be a 
religion. There may be any amount of intellectual assent to 
truth and the essential element of religion may be wanting. 
The belief must have an influence on life and thought, and it 
must be accompanied by a certain amount of positive reverence 
and respect for the nature and authority, or the power, of the 
being who is the object of belief. It, of course, assumes the 
truth and reality of the objects which it reveres, but it does not 
necessarily give any reason for this belief, nor attempt to ration- 
alize it. It is mainly an emotion with a sufficient background 
of intellectual element to give it a definite and pertinent object. 
As Mr. Martineau puts it : " The essence of religion lies in com- 
munion between the finite and the infinite mind, between the 
individual soul and the universal." 

The definition here is made as broad as possible, to cover every 
possible form of belief and reverence for the supernatural, from 
fetichism to modern theism. This is the only way to recognize 
the common elements in all those creeds and cults which go by 
the name of religion. We have to remember, however, that this 
merely defines religion as it is and has been, and does not define 
it with that differential element which is supposed to characterize 
the true religion. In fact we cannot undertake in a general dis- 
cussion to define the true religion. It is not the place to do so. 
But the dissatisfaction which many will feel at the failure to 
describe religion more suitably to the modern complex concep- 
tion of it is a reason for noting another ambiguity of the term. 
In speaking of the relation between religion and morality most 
persons have in mind, not the comprehensive and elaborated or 
formal definition of either one of them, but the concrete beliefs 
and practices of their own time. Religion to them will mean 
the concrete religions of their age. In many cases, general as 
the term is, it means only Christianity. In all such cases the 
question of the relation of religion and morality is decided by the 
facts. But when we undertake to determine that relation scien- 
tifically we must seek the fundamental conception of both and 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 403 

solve the problem accordingly. The problem is a manifold one. 
First, what is the relation between actual religions and the 
actual codes of conduct ? Second, what is the relation between 
actual religions and ideal or true morality ? Third, what is the 
relation between true religion and ideal or true morality ? The 
first of these questions is answered by the facts of observation 
and history. The second shows a tendency to define religion in 
the concrete and morality in the abstract, and is the favorite 
conception of the skeptic, who can easily find discrepancies 
between concrete or actual religion and abstract or ideal moral- 
ity, discrepancies which make it advisable to separate them or to 
purify religion. The third question represents the true concep- 
tion of the problem, and the only one which is capable of a 
proper and philosophic answer. We require carefully to define 
the essential elements of religion and morality both as they are 
and as they ought to be, and then to compare them on the same 
level, and not to compare the concrete conception of one with 
the abstract conception of the other. 

Now, the logical definition of religion involves a statement of 
its essential and necessary elements, without which that term 
would not be applied to it, except by sufferance. Hence we 
have defined it as a belief and a cult, a belief in supernatural 
agencies and existence, and a cult or mode of worship, involving 
a certain measure of respect and obedience to these agencies as 
having power over us. The differential element in the concep- 
tion here is the idea of the supernatural. The creed and cult 
must be regarding this or it will not constitute a religion. 
What connection this has with morality will be seen when moral- 
ity has been defined in the proper way. Enough, however, has 
been determined to suggest certain differences which separate 
them, whatever points of conjunction may be found at another 
time. 

But while this definition indicates what is essential, and all that 
is essential to a religion, it does not represent all the concrete 
elements that are often comprehended in the term and constitute 
the common understanding of its meaning. To make its com- 



404 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

plex and concrete conception clear it will be necessary to exam- 
ine briefly the evolution of religion and of the conception of it. 
This takes us over all forms of it, and indicates the elements not 
expressly noted in the definition. 

3d. Development and Contents of Religion — We shall here 
have to do with religion or religions in the concrete. The sub- 
ject must be dealt with very briefly and with as little allusion as 
possible to the contents of the numerous religions of history. 
The chief practical interest in Western civilization is the relation 
between Christian conceptions and morality. But these concep- 
tions are very complex and take up into themselves the total re- 
sults of history. 

It is probable that the first stage of the religious conscious- 
ness was a mere belief in the existence of supernatural forces, 
such as the universal existence of souls in nature. This would 
be the belief described by the term animism, and might also in- 
clude the belief in ancestral souls and ghosts. But the latter 
does not require notice, though it represents a religious belief of 
an interesting kind connected often with peculiar ceremonies 
and sacrifices for appeasing the will of such agencies. The be- 
lief in animism, however, is the immediate precursor of polytheism, 
which represents a more anthropomorphic conception of super- 
natural existence and lays less stress upon the animistic nature 
of everything. It represents a stage of generalization reducing 
supernatural agencies of any importance for man to a smaller 
number than animism implies. 

The second stage or element of the earliest form of religion 
was that of the propitiation of supernatural agencies. This was 
done in various ways, sometimes by sacrifices, vegetable, animal, 
or human, or by the performance of certain rites. The concep- 
tion here was not only of the existence of supernatural beings, 
but also of their power to interfere with mundane affairs and to 
command the services of man. Here begins the notion of a 
providential system though characterized by the peculiar ideas 
of the time, which did little or nothing to idealize the beings who 
bad so much power. Fear could be the only attitude of mind 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 405 

towards agencies enjoying so much arbitrary power and without 
any moral character. They were to be propitiated only by some 
form of self-mutilation or sacrifice. The religion of this stage 
was only a religion of fear and terror. But the belief in super- 
natural existence and the propitiation of such agencies represent 
together the creed and cult elements of early religion, later de- 
velopments simply adding new elements or modifying the old 
ones. 

The polytheistic stage was largely mythological in its concep- 
tions and so represented the deification of natural forces. The 
transition to the next higher stage, which we shall call monothe- 
ism, was characterized by a philosophic movement of the cosmo- 
logical type. The unification of the forces of nature in a single 
all-pervading substance was the signal for reducing the gods to 
unity also. This was done by exalting one of them to the su- 
preme place of authority and power and the reduction of all the 
others to his subjects or vassals. Monotheism was thus estab- 
lished, and it carried with it corresponding elements of intellec- 
tual culture. There arose a tendency to idealize God ; that is, 
to attribute certain moral perfections to him. The notion of 
propitiation remained, and remains still in theology, but it was 
softened by the moral advances of the age. There were three 
elements in this stage. They were : (a) The personality of the 
divine ; (b) the providential agency of the divine ; and (c) the 
idealization of the divine. The notion of personality existed in 
the polytheistic stage, but the other elements were absent. Re- 
ligion went no further than a belief and a cult in behalf of per- 
sonal interests. But under monotheism the religious conceptions 
of the world at large reflected the new and higher social condi- 
tions and ideas, representing, on the one hand, moral character in 
the divine, and on the other, a providential government for other 
interests than those of the divine alone. 

The next stage represents the highly organized religions of 
the present age, though their origin extends back into earlier 
times. The only one to be considered here is Christianity. 
This had its rise in a purely social and moral scheme, but soon 



406 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

after its founder's death assumed a theological form and rapidly 
developed into a most elaborate system. It took up the cosmo- 
logical elements of earlier philosophies and transformed them by 
the introduction of purely theological doctrines. The various 
elements constituting Christianity are as follows : (a) The person- 
ality of God ; (b) providential government of the world ; (c) 
the immortality of the soul ; (d) the divinity of Christ, the 
founder of it ; (e) a scheme of redemption involving propitiation 
by vicarious atonement and good works ; (/) the inspiration of 
the Scriptures ; (g) the cultivation of humanity and personal 
righteousness as a condition of realizing " the kingdom of God," 
which covers the moralization of the present life and salvation 
in the next, and (A) a form of worship. 

The theological development of Christianity contains all these 
elements as essentials, and it is clear that social and ethical con- 
ceptions are very important parts of it, having adhered to it from 
the first, when it was solely an organized effort to moralize the 
individual will, partly by religious sanctions and partly by in- 
voking the natural affections and sympathies. It contained 
only one element of religion at the outset, as we have defined it, 
and this was a belief in the divine, which was spontaneous, and 
not reflective or philosophic. A mode of worship soon became 
a part of it, both from the example of the founder and the relig- 
ious needs of its devotees. 

This complex mass of beliefs and enjoined practices shows us 
religion in the concrete as we see and know it about us. That 
it has a very intimate relation to morality, as a fact, ought to be 
unquestioned. A large element of its demands upon the indi- 
vidual are moral demands, and they have been sanctioned upon 
religious grounds. But whether there is any absolute necessity 
for a resort to these sanctions is another question. The social 
and religious history of the last eighteen centuries has largely 
identified Christianity with morality. But while this is a histor- 
ical fact, it does not prove the dependence of that morality upon 
Christian sanctions, which is the common illusion of mankind, 
when asked to give a reason for this morality. It is noticeable 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 407 

also that there are many theological elements in this concrete 
conception of religion which are not any part of it in the com- 
prehensive sense of our definition. The further connection of it 
with morality, however, can be discussed only when we have 
recapitulated the conception of morals. 

III. CONCEPTION OF MORALITY— Morality is good will 
and good conduct, and hence is action with reference to man as an 
end in himself. This definition comprehends both the subjective 
and objective aspects of it. It limits the purpose (reXo3) of 
conduct to man and may or may not extend its range of impor- 
tance beyond the present state of existence. But in determining 
the contents of morality we have a wide field of phenomena to 
cover. It comprehends every form of conduct from simple self- 
preservation to self-sacrifice. But we must classify its forms and 
develop their meaning. 

1st. Adjustment to Environment. — This involves the virtue of 
protection against injury of all kinds, or the preservation of 
personal and physical integrity. It takes these forms, physical, 
political, and social adjustment, involving the three duties of 
self-preservation, civil justice, and social equity. This is purely 
an objective element of morality and represents the external 
forces which impose limitations on human liberty. Conformity 
to them is necessary as a condition of realizing any other de- 
sired end. 

2d. Realization of an Ideal Order. — Besides mere adjustment 
to external forces, whether physical or personal, there is a 
field in which the human will can exert itself to modify those 
forces themselves. Hence its virtues or duties are not limited to 
submission, but extend to aggressive measures for establishing 
better physical and moral conditions in the world, as well as 
perfecting the agent's own powers. The duties here are those of 
education, including the culture of science and art and the ex- 
penditure of one's powers and resources in modifying the social 
and physical conditions of life. A better human order is the 
object of such duties and efforts. This is also an objective feature 
of morality. 



408 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

3d. The Exercise of Good Will. — This is the subjective as- 
pect of morality, and represents the demand made upon con- 
science whether a man is able to, adjust himself to environment 
and to realize a better order of the world or not. Morality here 
means volition from the sense of duty or its rigldness. The con- 
sequences may be what they please ; the will must aim rightly. 
Man must look upon himself as an end, as having rational worth 
in the order of existence, and seek to preserve that worth. Or 
if we wish to put the matter upon a lower plane, we can express 
the ultimate end as welfare, happiness, or perfection. But as we 
are expressing it in terms of the will we prefer to formulate the 
subjective side of morality so that it shall represent life accord- 
ing to law, or the ideal will, seeking to transfigure all its voli- 
tions with the sense of duty, so that the manner of action may 
be right whatever mishap may occur to its matter. Conscien- 
tiousness is its content, and while it may extend to any object 
whatever, it does not require more than obedience to the moral 
imperative, which may not demand more than the perfection of 
the individual will. 

Morality, then, being represented by good will and good con- 
duct, which may be determined in many, if not in all, cases, 
without the aid of religion, the only question that remains is to 
ascertain their relation to each other, whether it is one of de- 
pendence, independence, or identity. 

IV. THE RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND MORAL- 
ITY. — The definition and analysis show us the contents of both 
religion and morality, and now the more difficult problem is to be 
solved. More than one aspect of it will have to be taken into 
account. But first as to contents. 

The definition of religion shows that there must be a belief in 
the supernatural and some regard for it as a condition of the 
very existence of religion. This is not the case with morality so 
far as its objective aspect and contents are concerned. The be- 
lief in the supernatural is not necessary to it. Its object is man 
and his welfare, and not the propitiation or satisfaction of divine 
power. The fact also is that it may not seek a hereafter as its 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 409 

primary justification or sanction, while religion usually includes 
as one of its objects a regard to immortality as a principle of 
conduct. When it does not it is a cult. There is nothing to 
prevent .morality from thus taking iuto account the future 
after death as well as the whole scope of the present life. In 
fact, it may be admitted that the highest morality will do so, 
seeking adjustment to the eternal as well as the temporal. But 
conduct may be moral or immoral without either a belief in a 
hereafter or adjustment with reference to it, but with reference 
only to the present. There is even danger that an eye to a 
transcendental existence, of whose conditions we know nothing 
by experience, may obscure and divert us from many duties in 
the present. Hence while morality may have a meaning for 
eternity, this is not its only import. Morality has a value and 
an obligation when its purpose does not extend beyond the 
moralization of the present existence. Hence its contents do 
not necessarily include a supernatural reference. 

This position can be reinforced by an admission of religionists 
themselves. The strictest religious orthodoxy always tells us 
that morality w T ill not save a man, but that faith, grace, and 
atonement are essential to this end. In fact, the amount of 
emphasis laid upon the insufficiency of morality for redemption 
is astonishing when we consider that immorality alone is uni- 
versally regarded as a sufficient reason for damnation. The 
confession, however, only proves that morality may exist, that 
meritorious conduct and character may exist without any ac- 
companiment of the religious Consciousness necessary to spir- 
itual salvation, and that is sufficient proof that religion is not 
the only condition of an ethical life. The real motive for 
asserting the insufficiency of morality for eternal redemption 
came from the logical exigencies of the controversy between 
Greek and Christian thought, and from the hard and fast line 
drawn by theology between the redeemed and the lost. On the 
one hand, Greek philosophy asserted the adequacy of natural 
morality, and the Christian inferred from the supposed truth of 
this claim that there would be no need for the distinctly Chris- 



410 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

tian scheme on that supposition. Faith, atonement, and grace 
were supposed to be purely supererogatory, if the same end could 
be attained by moral volition. On the other hand, the failure of 
theology to recognize degrees of redemption and damnation, or of 
conditions expressed by them, cut itself off from admitting any 
redemptive agency in morality, though it was inconsistent in 
asserting the damning agency of immorality. If faith, grace, and 
atonement are necessary to salvation, or are the primary condi- 
tion of it, then the rejection of these, or infidelity, should be the 
only proper condition of damnation. However this may be, the 
one motive for asserting the insufficiency of morality was the fear 
that men might be saved without the need of admitting Christian- 
ity ; but in asserting that religion is a condition of morality, theol- 
ogy forgot the independence of the latter implied in its insufficiency 
for redemption. 

In their essential contents, therefore, religion and morality are 
wholly independent of each other. Religion, as we have seen, is 
a creed and a cult, a belief and form of worship, directed to the 
supernatural ; morality is good will and conduct directed to the 
welfare of man ; in some cases is nothing more than right social 
relations. Thus God is the object of one and man the object of 
the other. This single fact stamps them as distinct provinces. 
But nevertheless it does not solve the whole of the problem 
before us. The relation between them is not altogether one 
which can be decided by a comparison of their contents and 
objects. The traditional claim of the theologian has been that 
religion is essential to morality ; that morality has its foundation 
in religion and religious postulates. It has always been under- 
stood to mean either that unless the doctrines of theism are true, 
morality is not obligatory, or that unless a man is religious, he 
will not be moral. Hence we are required to study the problem 
from the standpoint of its ground, as well as its contents and 
objects. 

The theological position seems to be a very simple one, and is 
taken to be such by nearly all disputants. But this is not the 
case. It involves two totally distinct questions as it is usually 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 41 1 

discussed. They are the question of the ground and the 
question of the sanctions of morality. These two aspects of the 
problem are wholly independent of each other. The ground of 
morality must be either the nature of the Absolute, or the end to 
which volition is directed, or it may be both. Under the first 
conception of the case we must undoubtedly find an ultimate 
basis for morality in the postulates or conclusions of metaphysics, 
and it does not matter whether we regard the Absolute as 
personal or not, so that the theological or religious view has no 
more claims than any other point of view. But if it be the end 
of volition that determines the ground of morality, metaphysics 
and theology may both be shut out from being the only court of 
judicature in the case, unless they are called upon to decide the 
end of conduct. Moreover, the end is the only datum which 
can determine the contents of morality, and if theology cannot 
assign the end of conduct, or if this end can be decided inde- 
pendently of theology, morality will not depend wholly upon the 
postulates of metaphysics. But the chief illusion of those who 
assert an exclusively religious basis for morality is that they 
confuse the condition of its validity with the condition of our 
knowledge of its validity. They discuss the whole question as if 
we had to believe the theory of virtue before we could be virtu- 
ous ; as if we had to believe the ground of it before we could be- 
lieve it binding or practice it. There is no more absurd illusion. 
It may be true that all morality has its ground in some ultimate 
truths, metaphysical or theological, or the condition of things 
represented by those truths. But it does not follow either that 
we would not know or that we could not practice morality until 
we admit those truths. The fact is that we know and practice 
morality before we think of seeking its grounds anywhere. 
Hence, while the nature of morality, as a phenomenon in the 
world, may well have a basis in the Absolute which is an object 
of metaphysical study, the knowledge of it has no such basis, and 
all that is required for morality to exist is that' a man have a 
knowledge of its end and to pursue that end conscientiously, 
whether he possesses a belief aud a cult regarding the super- 



412 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

natural or not. Morality comes from the springs of character, 
from good will and insight as to the moral end, and not from a 
knowledge of metaphysical or theological postulates; nor any 
more from religious beliefs and practices. This should be evi- 
dent to that whole school of moralists who have defended the 
natural and implanted character of conscience as a part of man's 
endowment, while maintaining the revealed nature of religion 
and Christianity. 

In regard to the second question, we must remark the fact that 
the sanctions of morality bear no necessary relation to its 
grounds. They are not the basis of right, but are only reasons 
for doing it. These reasons for doing right do not necessa- 
rily constitute its nature in all cases, but may represent motives 
independent of the nature of morality itself. The theologian too 
often confuses this problem with that of the grounds of right. 
Now, we frankly admit that religion may be a sanction of moral- 
ity : it may be the highest sanction. But it is not the only sanc- 
tion. The religious mind makes the mistake of supposing that 
religion is the only sanction, and the anti-religious mind the mis- 
take of supposing that it cannot be a genuine sanction at all. 

The problem in Ethics is a twofold one. It seeks, first, to de- 
termine the nature, contents, and ground of morality (ratio es- 
sendi). Ultimately this can be only one principle. Then as a 
second object it endeavors to find reasons for doing what is right, 
arguments that may make it effective (ratio movendi). The 
latter does not necessarily coincide with the former. The ulti- 
mate ground of morality, or its intrinsic worth, is always a rea- 
son for realizing it, but it may not present an effective motive to 
the will. The ideal may have no efficiency. Hence we may 
resort to any other incidents in its nature or connections to induce 
conformity to it. Thus we may assert that morality is a part of 
the will of God, a part of His revelation, in order to obtain all 
the motive force attaching to the acceptance of those facts for 
securing conduct whose inherent character is not a sufficient mo- 
tive to effect the will. In that case we are only appealing to a 
recognized authority for obtaining at least self : consistency on the 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 413 

part of the agent. If he admits the existence and ideal nature 
of God, and appreciates the religious consciousness at all, he 
must naturally feel that God's character and commands, though 
they do not make morality, may be a reason for obedience and 
for doing the right. To such a person religion must be the 
highest sanction for morality. And when we come to recognize 
that the conception of God is the highest ideal man can know, 
and that He represents the highest sovereign of the universe, His 
character and authority, taken with His assumed omniscience, 
omnipresence, and omnipotence, must form the most important 
and effective of all sanctions. 

But the religious mind w T holly forgets that the effectiveness of 
this sanction depends upon the agent's admitting the existence of 
God and the truth of religion. Unless they are admitted it is 
useless to contend for them as reasons for doing what is right. 
When a man does not admit the truth of religion and religious 
doctrines, or does not feel their value, any attempt to make moral- 
ity and its obligations depend wholly upon them, must issue in 
shifting the controversy aAvay from the nature and validity of 
morality to the truth of religion, and in the meantime Ethics 
must pay the forfeit. Now, there are many minds that are skepti- 
cal in matters of religion, that either deny the supernatural and 
affiliated beliefs or are too uncertain about them to base their 
conduct upon so insecure a foundation, and yet feel the springs 
of conscience and duty quite as forcibly as the religious mind. 
They feel the value and imperativeness of moral law as fully as 
anybody else, and yet know that if its validity depends upon the 
acceptance of religion, they must be exempt from its obligations, 
because to them religion is wholly an uncertain quantity. They 
are entirely within their rights, therefore, when they seek extra- 
religious sanctions for morality. What they stand for is the idea 
that religious consciousness, in so far as it represents a belief in 
the supernatural, and a form of worship, is not a precondition of 
knowing what is moral and feeling its imperative worth. They 
can be as earnest and self-sacrificing as religious persons, and de- 
sire in some way, not only to identify their lives with the world's 



414 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

regeneration, but also to give effective reasons for morality with- 
out engulfing themselves in the swamps of theological contro- 
versy. They would avoid this and seek independent reasons for 
virtue, so that it may be saved, whatever the issue in religious 
questions. Now, there may be any number of sanctions for mo- 
rality outside of religion, and this without denying that religion, 
if true, furnishes the most valuable of all sanctions. They are 
utility or happiness, self-consistency, perfection, the value of the 
ideal, social order, public opinion, law, and any influence which 
exists in favor of morality, and which may be employed to move 
the mind. The ground of morality, the ultimate object of voli- 
tion is the true and most universal of the sanctions for it. But 
it is not always effective, especially when personal interest con- 
flicts or seems to conflict with it. Hence much importance of a 
practical kind attaches to securing a fact which will show an 
agreement between duty and interest in the particular case. This 
will be a reason for doing it when the ideal itself is ineffective. 
The attainment of a practical reason for being moral is the great 
object of practical Ethics, and of those who feel that the religious 
sanction loses its efficiency with the extension of skepticism. We 
conclude, therefore, that religion is not the only sanction of 
morality, and is not even the most universal or effective sanc- 
tion, for the reason that its nature and validity is still an open 
question with many of our most earnest minds, whose co-operation 
is too much needed in morality to shut them out from sympathy, 
by turning the whole problem into a theological dispute about . 
the existence of God and the importance of ritual worship. These 
have their place and value ; but their difficulties are greater than 
those of the moral law, and hence the validity and security of 
the latter should not be weakened by the uncertainties of the 
former. 

Mr. Martineau * states the whole case very clearly to prove 

what has just been maintained. " If we start from our own 

psychological experience alone," he says, " without assumption 

or speculation respecting the universe around, we meet there, at 

* Study of Keligion, Vol. L, Introduction. 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 415 

a very early stage, with ethical elements, involving the idea and 
furnishing the rule of duty. Childhood itself, small as are its 
concerns, is full of its moral enthusiasms and indignations, quick 
with its shame and compunction, bright with its self-approval ; 
and with all its heedlessness betrays every day the inner work- 
ing and the eager growth of Conscience. This order of feeling, 
personal and sympathetic, does not wait for the lessons of the 
religious instructor and the conception of the universe as under 
Divine administration ; on the contrary, it is the condition on 
which such teaching depends for its efficacy, and is present where 
no theological sequel is ever appended to it. The profound 
sense of the authority and even sacredness of the moral law is* 
often conspicuous among men whose thoughts apparently never 
turn to superhuman things, but who are penetrated by a secret 
worship of honor, truth, and right. Were this noble state of 
mind brought out of its impulsive state and made to unfold its 
implicit contents, it would indeed reveal a source higher than 
human nature for the august authority of righteousness. But it 
is undeniable that the authority may be felt where it is not seen, 
felt as if it were the mandate of a Perfect Will, while yet there 
is no overt recognition of such will ; i.e., conscience may act as 
human before it is discovered to be divine. To the agent him- 
self its whole history may seem to lie in his own personality and 
his visible social relations ; and it shall nevertheless serve as his 
oracle, though it may be hid from him who it is that utters it. 
The moral consciousness, while thus pausing short of its complete 
development, fulfills the conditions of responsible life and makes 
character real and the virtues possible. Ethics, therefore, have 
practical existence and operation prior to any explicit religious 
belief ; the law of right is inwoven with the very tissue of our 
nature and throbs in the movements of our experience, and can- 
not be escaped by any one till he can fly from himself. Did we 
even imagine that we came out of nothing, and went back into 
nothing, and had ties only with one another ; still, so long as we 
are what we are, our life must take form from its own germ, and 
grow and ramify into moral commonwealths." 



416 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

After showing that religion is in no sense the ground of mo- 
rality, and that it is not the only, though it may be the highest, 
sanction of it, it may be well to call attention to certain inci- 
dents in which they are closely related. Both religion and mo- 
rality have an emotional element. This emotional element is the 
same in its nature. It is reverence for an ideal. The difference 
is in the nature of the object to which the reverence is directed. 
In the case of religion it is the person, the perfections, and the 
providence of a Supreme Being ; in the case of morality it is 
either the moral law as an ideal condition of will, or it is an 
ideal order which the will owes it to itself to realize, or it is the 
ideal man. God may be an object of moral as well as religious 
reverence. Not so with man ; he can be an object only of 
moral, but not of religious, reverence. This is a most radical 
difference between them. The reverence in each case affects 
action. But religious reverence will not affect moral action un- 
less the individual consciousness has connected its morality with 
its religion as an element in the total of its mental objects, as 
is generally the case in the most important religions. It avails 
only to secure adjustment to the authority and pow T er of deity, 
and unless God is idealized or made to reflect the moral charac- 
ter which a developed consciousness naturally reveals from its 
very constitution, reverence for him never affects the moral life. 
But it is a peculiarity of all the ethnic religions that they have 
in some way permeated the whole moral life of their devotees in 
some way. This may have been from their power to invoke the 
fear of men or to invite their love and affections. Whatever 
the motive they excite, they have affected the customs and con- 
duct of whole nations. This is simply a historical fact not to be 
disputed and shows a very important influence upon morality, as 
that defines the actual habits of men. But while the sentiment 
of reverence, on the one hand, and the conception of moral per- 
sonality in ■ the Divine Being, on the other, unite to affiliate 
moral and religious feelings, the material objects of the two re- 
main entirely distinct ; that is, the ends which they are designed 
to serve. At the same time the coincidence of the two prov- 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 417 

inces is effected by the tendency of religion to appropriate every 
ideal element of consciousness, which it has a right to do, but in 
doing so often mistakes the appropriation for the right to deter- 
mine or condition the existence of morality. 

We remarked above that "in their essential contents" religion 
and morality are independent of each other, while the admissions 
just made would seem to make them interpenetrate and to con- 
tain much of the same object matter. Both views, however, are 
correct. It is only in their essential and distinctive contents — 
that is, as strictly defined — that they are independent of each 
other. We have indicated the true mark by which religion is to 
be recognized, and that is the belief and worship of the super- 
natural, which is not any part of morality, though this may be 
sanctioned by it. But it is the characteristic of common and un- 
scientific thought, not to use the term " religion " in its strict 
meaning. To this, religion means, besides what we have defined 
it, almost anything else covered by great moral earnestness, or 
sanctioned by religious authority. From the very fact that 
religion may sanction morality, it has a tendency to bring 
every object of reverence and admiration under the shelter of its 
wings. The emotions of the two fields being of the same nature 
augments this tendency, and hence the objects which define the 
field of morality, such as personal worth, the sense of duty, pub- 
lic welfare, and all the social and moral ideals, such as veracity, 
justice, honesty, chastity, benevolence, etc., are naturally enough 
absorbed by the religious frame of mind. But they are no part 
of its elements as a religion, defined as above. If they are to be 
regarded so, it must be on the ground that we have not correctly 
defined religion, and that it is more than a creed and a cult re- 
garding the supernatural. If it be more than this we do not see 
how it can be defined at all without identifjung it and morality, 
which would prevent it from being either the ground or the 
sanction of morals, and contradict all human experience in the 
fact that men can be moral without being religious. This could 
not be if they were identical in their contents. Morality may be 
transfigured and rendered nobler, more constant, and self-sacrific- 



418 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

ing by the influence of religion. This, however, is not because 
they are of the same nature, but only because the sentiment of 
reverence and the moral character attributed to the divine 
power ruling the world are so closely identified with the emo- 
tional element of morality and the qualities of man which are en- 
titled to moral reverence, that they interpenetrate with morality 
and absorb as incidental contents matters which are not essen- 
tial and distinctive features of religion scientifically defined. 
This is simply to say that the emotional elements of religion and 
morality are so nearly or so distinctly the same, that it is only 
natural for them to interpenetrate in some of their connections, 
s and more especially since both have personality as an object and 
involve a cosmological reference in the determination of conduct. 
The divine is regarded as the sovereign of nature, and man must 
adjust himself to this system, and hence, whether he admits a per- 
sonal ruler of the world or not, his conduct must be the same in 
kind and character. The nature and worth of his volitions must 
remain the same under all circumstances, and religion can only 
increase the sanctions for them. It does not condition them nor 
determine their w r orth. It adds efficiency, not value, to them. 
Consequently, notwithstanding the personal and cosmological re- 
lations of the two sets of phenomena, in the intersection of their 
interests, the only way to maintain a necessary connection be- 
tween them is to stretch the meaning of religion so that it can 
denote whatever has happened historically to get the sanction of 
religious minds. What we have to learn, however, is the great 
difference between religion and religious minds. The former is a 
definite and definable thing; the latter, beyond the distinctive 
element which makes it religious, is not definable at all, but may 
include anything whatever among the objects of its reverence. 
In a scientific treatment of the question we must rely upon strict 
definition, and this will show not only the distinctness of the two 
classes of phenomena in all but their psychological and subjec- 
tive elements, but also the probability that religion could secure 
its survival only by the afterthought of connecting itself with 
morality, a view which is amply sustained by the history of Greek 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 419 

intellectual development, and by the superior power of all relig- 
ions which have been fortunate enough to ingraft morality upon 
them. But in the process of absorbing morality religion has run 
away from its original object, and although it has purified itself 
in doing so, it can give an efficacy to moral law which that seems 
not to possess without the inspiration of religious consciousness. 
The relation of the two, therefore, in their scientific conception, 
seems to be that of a product conjoining religious power with 
moral objects; which is simply to say that the distinctively re- 
ligious element is not the condition of morality, but only adds 
enthusiasm and efficacy in qualities which can exist independ- 
ently of it. 

The last topic confirms this general conclusion while admit- 
ting a close connection between them. But it shows that if any 
relation of dependence exists at all it is the reverse of what the 
theologian claims. Eeligious advocates usually tell us that 
there can be no morality without religion. On the contrary, 
several facts show that, if there be any dependence at all, moral- 
ity must condition religion, at least in all those characteristics 
which affect social and moral life. 

In the first place, we have seen that the most orthodox de- 
fenders of the supremacy of religion tell us that morality will 
not save a man from perdition, which, as observed, admits its 
possible existence without religion. But the same persons tell 
us that we cannot be saved without morality, which is to partly 
condition redemption upon a moral life, and so to supplement 
its deficiencies by adding to it the sanctifying influences of re- 
ligion, which is the most important of the two redemptive agen- 
cies, as maintained by its defenders. But even morality is not 
necessary for salvation, as judged from the standpoint of death- 
bed repentances. This latter theory is inconsistent with the one 
just stated, though it has seemed necessary in order to retain any 
argument for the value of religion. However, not to persist in 
emphasizing this weakness, which is rather logical than moral, 
because the healthy moral mind revolts against so extreme a 
conception of the problem, we would remark that in so far as 



420 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

religion is supposed to supplement the inadequacy of morality 
for redemption it canuot condition it, but would more probably 
be itself conditioned by morality. 

Confirming this conclusion is a second fact of great signifi- 
cance. It is that the moralization of human consciousness has 
preceded the conception of moral personality and character in 
the divine, which has been supposed to authorize or even create 
morality. If anything is clear in the history of religion gener- 
ally, it is that the first conception of God was that of mere 
pow T er, superior or omnipotent power, to be feared and propi- 
tiated, not loved. Greek mythology and polytheism reflect 
nothing else, and even its monotheism is often darkened by the 
shadows from the earlier and mythological view. Indeed the 
immense power of skepticism in the hands of the Sophists was 
due to the utterly immoral character of the gods as conceived by 
the uncritical and traditional beliefs of Greece. They were the 
embodiment of arbitrary power, and religion was only a night- 
mare of fear and propitiation directed to satisfy the caprices and 
cruelties of these beings, whose character after all was but the 
reflection of political life, on the one hand, and of the concep- 
tion of physical nature, on the other. But wherever moral con- 
sciousness rose above the notion that might could make right, 
and wherever it conceived social relations as involving respect 
for humanity, it began at once to idealize the divine agencies 
which had been placed at the helm of the universe, and religion 
was purified by the previous realization of moral conceptions. 
While religion as a mere unintelligent belief in divine agency 
and a cult of propitiation might and did exist prior to moral 
consciousness of any kind that affected this religion, the refined 
and nobler conceptions sheltered by modern Christianity were 
determined and conditioned by the higher conception of moral- 
ity which transfigured it. The idealization of the divine was a 
consequence of moral consciousness, not a condition of it. As 
man's moral consciousness developed and felt more and more the 
impulse of the ideal and the enthusiasm of humanity, it began 
to reflect its attainment in the conception of God. The old 



MORALITY AXD RELIGION 421 

Greek dramatists and moralists, the Hebrew prophets, and the 
founder of Christianity transfigured the divine by changing the 
conception of it from that of a mere sovereign whose wrath was 
to be appeased by sacrifices to that of a merciful and righteous 
power benevolently interested in the welfare of man. In brief, 
the character of the divine, which is an object of worship to re- 
ligion, is a reflection of the moral development of the age. Re- 
ligion does not get beyond the fear of power when morality is 
nothing but the reluctant adjustment to forces that compel 
obedience, but do not invite respect. It becomes an embodi- 
ment of love and reverence when morality has been sufficiently 
developed to dispel the belief and respect for the divine unless it 
can reflect the ideal. Hence we find in this fact a proof that 
moral consciousness conditions the religious, as it appears in the 
concrete religion of the day. It may not condition religion as 
abstractly defined, but it does condition the concrete system of 
beliefs and practices which go by that name in current usage, 
and that is what is usually meant by the term. Hence theology 
seems to be in a dilemma. If religion be strictly defined it 
either wholly separates morality from itself or it identifies the 
two. In neither case can it be a condition of morality. On the 
other hand, if religion be defined in concrete terms representing 
the moralized conception of the divine as reflected in prevailing 
religious views, morality or moral consciousness is a condition 
of religion, and not the reverse, and this simply because the his- 
tory of religion does not show the incorporation of morality 
among its sanctities until it became a part of the revelation of 
consciousness independent of that religion. 

In the general conclusion, therefore, taken in their scientific 
definition, religion and morality are independent of each other, 
both in conception and contents. But taken in the popular 
sense where religion is conceived to mean anything which comes 
under its sanction, the two fields of phenomena intersect and in- 
terpenetrate ; but religion is not a condition of morality, while 
the latter conditions the idealization of the divine as a product 
of metaphysical inquiry into the explanation of nature. Nor 



422 ' ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

does this view reflect on the value of the religious consciousness. 
There is no necessity in the world's economy that religion should 
condition morality. On the contrary, the necessity seems the 
other way. Religion is properly the crown and flower of moral- 
ity, and the very fact that it is this, that it represents the high- 
est development of human consciousness, as comprehending ear- 
nestness and reverence toward the totality of a man's relations to 
the world and its Maker, the last and mature product of human 
reason, establishes its dependence for purity and rationality 
upon the right ordering and development of all the lower func- 
tions which it takes up and appropriates. It is only mistaking 
the sanction of morality for the condition of it that reverses the 
true order of conception. But it is a false honor to claim for 
religion a consideration which puts morality at the mercy of 
skepticism in theology, and casts every man outside the fold of 
righteousness who cannot agree with us in religious matters. 
The moral interests of the world require harmony instead of dis- 
sension, and this can be obtained by uniting on the certainties 
of moral consciousness instead of resorting to the old methods of 
authority and appealing to conceptions whose validity is still in 
court. 

We may summarize the complex relations which we have con- 
sidered between religion and morality, and in this way obtain a 
more comprehensive view of them, (a) The object of religion is 
the supernatural, that of morality is human welfare and con- 
formity to the sense of duty, (b) Religion is not the ground, 
but the sanction, of morality, and is, moreover, not the only sanc- 
tion of it. (c) The psychological or subjective elements of relig- 
ion and morality are the same or closely related, but the objec- 
tive elements are different, (d) The two fields of phenomena 
intersect and interpenetrate, but only in the popular and con- 
crete use of the term religion, (e) The ideal character of the 
divine is a reflection of a previously developed moral conscious- 
ness, and not the reverse. All these show that the problem of 
the relation between religion and morality is a very complicated 
one, and requires a method for its solution quite different from 



MORALITY AND RELIGION. 423 

the usual .procedure. We only trust that in attempting it we 
have met with at least a measure of success, and at the same 
time have committed no offense against the sanctities of the 
question. 

References. — Martineau : Study of Beligion, Vol. I., Introduction ; Types 
of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., Book I., Chapter VI., \ 9 ; Essays, Keviews and 
Addresses, Vol. IV., pp. 293-317; Mackenzie: Manual of Ethics, Chap- 
ter XVII., pp. 302-320 ; Stuckenberg : Introduction to the Study of Phi- 
losophy, Chapter IX., especially p. 342 ; Fiske : Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. 
II., pp. 357, 465 ; Smyth : Christian Ethics, Introduction, more especially 
pp. 13-26 ; Fowler and Wilson : Principles of Morals, Vol. II., Chapter 
X. ; Martensen : Christian Ethics (General), Introduction, especially pp. 
13-22 ; Wundt : Ethik, Erster Abschnitt, Zweites Capitel, pp. 33-84 ; 
Janet : Theory of Morals, Chapter XII. ; Dorner : Christian Ethics, pp. 
134-141, and Introduction ; Pollock: Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, 
Chapter XL ; Schurman : Belief in God, Lecture III. ; Barratt : Physical 
Ethics, pp. 330-387 ; Caird : The Critical Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II., 
Book IV., Conclusion; Knight: Christian Ethic; Gizycki: Moral Phi- 
losophic, pp. 329-495 ; Translation by Coit, pp. 208-276 ; Bowne : Prin- 
ciples of Ethics, Chapter VII. 



CHAPTER X. 

THEORY OF EIGHTS AND DUTIES. 

L INTRODUCTORY.— The doctrine of rights and duties has 
some complications which require careful consideration. In 
some connections the two conceptions seem to be dependent on 
each other, and in other instances they seem to be wholly unre- 
lated. On the one hand, wherever a duty exists, a right seems 
to be involved. This, of course, means that an individual duty 
involves the right of the person to freedom of conscience and 
action in that particular. On the other hand, a right is often 
claimed for actions which do not involve duties of any kind, ex- 
cept in other persons than those who have the right in the case. 
Then again my rights determine others' duties toward me, but 
they may have duties toward me which do not affect any rights 
in me or add to them. This is a complication which it is well 
worth while to carefully analyze and explain. 

Man is said to be the subject of both rights and duties, and 
the problem of theoretical Ethics is to ascertain whether one de- 
termines the other and which does so, or whether both of them 
may not have a common ground upon which to rest. Some 
writers, as Trendelenburg, condition all rights upon moral prin- 
ciples or duties ; others condition duties upon rights, and so 
seem to condition morality upon data which are purely optional 
with the human will. This is because the term " rights " often 
expresses privileges whose enjoyment does not seem to involve 
morality, but only ethically indifferent conduct. Thus a man 
may be said to have the right to take a bath, to laugh at a joke, 
to talk to his neighbors, to look out of his window, to live on a 
vegetable diet, etc., but not to be unconditionally obliged to per- 

424 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 425 

form any of these acts. By supposition in these cases there is no 
duty to act, but only the liberty to act or not, as we please. The 
right, however, carries with it the duty of others to respect it, 
although the right does not originate presumably in any duty of 
the subject. If duty were thus limited to the correlation with 
rights it would have nothing more than a social meaning and 
eontent, and so not apply outside of social relations. But the 
main problem suggested by the fact is the question whether 
duties are always relative and whether rights are founded upon 
morality in its last analysis, or whether they depend upon what 
is implied in the idea of personality. We are in the habit of 
regarding duty as absolute, at least in its application to the high- 
est good. But if it be only relative to the existence of rights, 
and these represent only optional conditions, duty seems to have 
no other foundation than an alterable set of circumstances, and 
may be evaded by abandoning the claim to rights, unless we can 
find a basis for these which is not optional. On the other hand, 
there is the question whether " rights " express merely an immu- 
nity against the interference of others, which would give both 
rights and duties nothing but a social content, so that the indi- 
vidual apart from his social conditions would be exempt from 
the obligations to morality. On account of the complexities in- 
volved in these questions it is important to examine the nature 
and kinds of both rights and duties, with the implications they 
contain and the full contents of their meaning. 

II. NATURE OF RIGHTS.— -The most important general ob- 
servation to be made about " rights " is the fact that we are not 
here dealing with a property of actions, but of persons. "We 
have already seen that " right " can be taken to describe the 
moral quality of conduct and denotes either its correctness as a 
means to an end, or its intrinsic worth and claim to approbation, 
wrong denoting the opposite. But as here considered, in the 
plural, or spoken of as " a right," the term denotes nothing of 
the kind. We have to speak and think of rights as belonging 
to persons and as describing certain immunities possessed by 
them. 



426 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

1st. Definition. — The shortest definition of a right would be 
that it is a claim to the forbearance and protection of others in 
certain specific cases. Another account would make it express 
a privilege which exempts the subject from blame or censure in the 
exercise of it. The latter view is probably more comprehensive 
than the former, which implies at least the social conditions deter- 
mining the " right." But in order to be more clear and definite 
we shall call the former social and the latter individual or moral 
rights. The difference between them is that the violation of 
social duties is punishable, of individual or moral duties, censur- 
able. The social right is a claim against violence ; a moral 
right is a claim against reproach. Both, of course, represent 
what is censurable, but the evasion of the latter duties is only 
censurable, while that of social rights is more. In both senses, 
however, rights only express that which the agent is at liberty to 
pursue, and which others must respect. But in all cases it indi- 
cates a defensible claim against aggression, interference, or re- 
straint. This claim is wholly for liberty of actios, or of control- 
ling possessions. Where a right is denied, we prohibit, either 
legally or morally, the actions which would be protected by it. 
Hence the idea practically resolves itself into a legitimate de- 
mand for freedom or liberty of action, which implies the duty 
of others to respect it. Its full meaning, however, can be de- 
termined only by an examination of its limitations and its 
correlates. 

2d. Limitations of Rights. — Rights cannot be predicated of 
man without certain limitations. If they could, they would 
mean unrestricted liberty, sanctified by all the sacredness which 
attaches to both conceptions. But as a matter of fact the welfare 
of both the individual and of society requires very decided re- 
strictions upon individual liberty, and so upon individual rights. 
This doctrine requires assertion because of the ambiguity latent 
in the term " rights," which is often taken to imply the legiti- 
macy of an act, as well as the liberty to perform it, nothing being 
implied as to its character in the latter case. This sacredness 
attaching to it is too often assumed to imply that rights are un- 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 427 

limited and unconditional. But this can easily be shown to be 
wholly false. The conception has most decided limitations. 

1. Man has no Eights in Relation to Nature. — Nature 
here represents the physical and external world, or all imper- 
sonal forces whatsoever. Against them man has no rights, but 
only powers. Between man and nature it is simply and only a 
struggle for supremacy ; it is a contest between two powers or 
forces, in which the stronger must prevail ; and if man be the 
weaker and is crowded to the wall he cannot assert any charges of 
injustice, nor if the stronger and successful, can he claim that his 
victory is a triumph of justice. If man has any rights at all, 
therefore, they must be determined by some other fact than a rela- 
tion to impersonal forces. This is clear by making the attempt 
to imagine a man as having rights in a state of solitude. 
Placed face to face with nature alone he can have no rights for 
the simple reason that rights imply a duty on the part of others 
to respect them, and nature cannot be charged with any duties. 
Only personal agents can have duties; impersonal forces can 
only have powers. Rights are purely relative, and hence are 
limited to the sphere of social and moral conditions. They are 
not an attribute of man conceived as an individual being, but 
only of his social relations. If, then, he can be said to have 
duties independently of his social relations, in its last analysis 
duty and morality are not determined by rights. But not to an- 
ticipate, the fact that he has no rights in relation to nature 
shows that the claim to them is limited and that they are not a 
possession of him as an individual,' but only as a member of a 
social organism, as one among equals. 

We do, nevertheless, often speak of a man as having a right 
to perform a certain act when he seems to be related only to 
nature. Thus a man has a " right " to look at the stars, to eat 
food, to hunt game, to take exercise, etc., even in a solitary 
state when a social organism does not exist, or when others can- 
not make any claims upon his forbearance or assistance. This 
conception has been alluded to before and it is undoubtedly the 
most comprehensive use of the term. It denotes, not so much a 



428 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

claim against the will of others as exemption from censure or 
reproach for one's course of action, or exemption from the in- 
cumbency of obligation. This same notion holds of the term as 
expressing a claim against legitimate interference from others. 
But in spite of this common characteristic such a right is not 
determined by the man's relation to nature, but solely by the 
exemption from duty which possesses a resemblance to exemp- 
tion from the legitimate interference of others. In the broadest 
sense of the term, "rights" express liberty. But it is, on the 
one hand, liberty from social restraint, and on the other liberty 
or exemption from moral censure. The difference, however, is 
not in favor of man's having rights in relation to nature. It is 
only transferring a conception of social limitations over to the 
relation between a man and his own conscience, so that where 
duty is not binding the man can possess the same liberty of 
action as he possesses when others can make no claims upon his 
sacrifices. Hence it is not the relation to nature that determines 
these rights, so that the dictum announcing the limitations of 
rights to social and moral conditions still holds true. 

2. Eights are Limited by Reciprocity. — This is a most 
important restriction upon the claim to rights. It is embodied 
in the modern practice and institutions of social life, and is 
expressed as an axiom that no man can claim that which he 
would not grant to another under the same conditions. A man 
cannot claim the right or privilege to do injury to others without 
granting to them the same immunity. If this claim ever be 
advanced in favor of one and not of another, it must reduce 
social organization to chaos. It would be tantamount to a 
declaration of social inequality, and place all but the incumbent 
under restraints which would not be endured. Moreover, one 
man cannot claim, in the nature of things, more than he will 
concede to others under like circumstances, without endanger- 
ing his own claim. Again, the reason for claiming a right will 
be the same in all normally and rationally constituted persons, 
and hence if legitimate in one instance will be legitimate in all 
such. Consequently the admission of rights in one involves that 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 429 

of equal rights with the others. Moreover, where one man has a 
right, the fact excludes the right of others to infringe it, so that 
the formula for the limitation of rights will be that a claim to 
rights must consist with the equal rights of all others, conditions 
being the same. This principle imposes very distinct limitations 
upon free action, by requiring the suppression of all claims that 
conflict with social welfare and the conformity of the individual 
will to this end. The strict application of this principle in social 
life assumes that all men are equal, and hence the doctrine that 
all men have equal rights. In practice, however, the principle 
requires qualification to suit the various conditions and charac- 
ters of men. But wherever men are equal in endowments and 
disposition, they have equal rights, so that the only limitation 
which they can possess under these conditions is that of the same 
rights in others. The individual is subordinated to the whole, 
or each person is required to adjust his claims to freedom of 
conduct to those conditions in which he must surrender all 
superiority and advantage over others, his equals. If men are 
unequal the case is different. 

3. Rights are Limited by the Degree of Responsi- 
bility. — If all men were equal in their endowments, physical, 
intellectual, and moral, their responsibility would be the same 
and the abstract principle announced in the preceding section 
would be applied without qualification. But men are not con- 
stituted equal. They vary in their several characteristics, and 
more particularly in the intellectual and moral. The latter 
especially affect their responsibility, as we have already seen in 
a previous chapter. Their rights must be modified in the same 
proportion. Perfect freedom of action can be accorded to the 
intellectually and morally sane, but must be restricted in the 
defective classes. This principle is applied to the criminal, the 
pauper, the imbecile, and the insane, and with a less degree to 
children. The fact is, of course, a mere truism. But it is 
referred to in order to show that rights are not absolute posses- 
sions, but are subordinated to some other fact in man's moral 
nature. This limitation requires that they be deduced or deter- 



430 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

mined from the principle upon which they depend, or by which 
they are conditioned. 

3d. Correlatives of Rights. — It has been established that 
rights are purely relative to the claims of others upon us, or to 
the sphere of indifferent actions affecting the welfare of ourselves 
and others. This implies that they have an object which may 
be called their correlative. A correlative is that which is im- 
plied or implicitly expressed in a given datum. Rights involve 
this and derive their whole meaning from it. They may be 
summarized as follows, as they define the sphere of conduct. 

1. Social Conditions and Duties. — We have seen that a 
man does not strictly possess rights in a state of isolation or soli- 
tude, but only when he is placed in a moral relation to his fel- 
lows having duties to him. Hence duty is the correlative of 
rights. This conception is expressible by the formula that the 
rights of A involve the correlative duty of B to respect them. 
A social order is the recognition of this fact. But it is not nec- 
essary that society be definitely organized before these rights and 
duties come into existence. All that is required is a relation 
between persons expressed by a common nature, a common rela- 
tion to the world, common ends, and competition for the means 
of subsistence. Rights may exist even before the social organism 
has been formed, though they may not be enforced. Moreover, 
the converse is also true ; namely, that the existence of society 
or of social relations necessarily involves the existence of rights 
and duties. In these cases we are justified in supposing that 
duties are determined by rights, and within the sphere expressed 
by them would not exist but for those rights. This sphere is 
that of justice, which is still to be considered. For instance, the 
duty to respect property, to avoid theft, is determined wholly by 
the previous existence of the right to property. In fact a viola- 
tion of property claims would be impossible until the right was 
admitted. Hence such duties have no existence except under 
the condition of existing rights. If all duties are such as these, 
they have only a social- and not a personal or private object. 

The principle thus determined can be expressed in the for- 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 431 

mula : the rights of the subject imply the correlate duty in the object 
when that is a person, and now the question remains whether the 
rights cf the subject imply any correlative duties in himself. 
They do not, except as they imply equal rights in others, and thus 
involve their correlates. Duties in the subject may imply rights, 
but rights will not imply his duties. Animals and irrational 
beings are supposed to have rights, but not duties. On the 
other hand, wherever duties are supposed to exist in rational be- 
ings, they determine rights against foreign infringement. This 
means that liberty must always be subordinated to duty. In- 
different actions, or such as are claimed to be indifferent, must 
be made to yield to the demands of moral law, and hence duty 
is superior to rights and not the correlate of them in the sub- 
ject. 

2. The Appeal to Force in their Defense. — The exist- 
ence of a right justifies the use of force to maintain it. If such 
force could not be exerted, the right would be practically nuga- 
tory. The use of force against another must always be regarded 
as an injury unless it is in defense of a right, and unless, when a 
right is conceded, we admit the legitimacy of an appeal to force 
in its defense, the right can only be claimed, but not made effec- 
tive. Government is founded upon this postulate, and public 
opinion operates to substitute reason for that appeal. But when 
it fails, and when the interests of society are great enough to de- 
mand it, force must step in to accomplish what reason and pub- 
lic opinion fail to do. Rights are sacred, more sacred than the 
use of force is objectionable, and this because they are compli- 
cated with a system of duties which command the highest attain- 
ments possible in the individual. Hence in order to maintain 
them the employment of force must be the correlative of their ex- 
istence. On any other terms the use of force is an evil to be re- 
pressed. 

4th. Divisions of Rights. — Rights are divided into two great 
classes, Natural or Personal, and Acquired or Political rights, 
according as they represent conditious fixed by nature, or condi- 
tions determined by society. Natural rights are those possessed 



432 



ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 



against others, and acquired rights are those obtained from others. 
The former has fewer limitations than the latter, dej>ending less 
upon the degree of responsibility possessed than upon the organic 
nature of the subject. They might also be called individual in 
contrast with social rights. Bat probably the terms adopted 
are better. By natural rights, however, we do not mean any- 
thing like the doctrine of Rousseau and the eighteenth-century 
philosophers who talked so effectively about " the rights of man " 
and "natural rights." These writers were individualists, pure 
and simple, and maintained that rights were endowments belong- 
ing to man by nature and not a mere expression of what was 
implied in his social relations. But by natural rights we mean 
here nothing more than claims upon others, which are conferred 
by nature, if you like, but are wholly the product of social con- 
ditions and must vanish with them. They are called "natural" 
because they are not conferred by convention or legislation, but 
arise from relations which exist independently of the conven- 
tional relations of society. They are natural in the sense that 
they are not conferrable by law, but exist by virtue of the indi- 
vidual's relation to his own nature and actions. The acquired 
rights are conferred by social action on the ground of certain 
qualifications. They are more distinctly subordinated to the 
will and wants of public welfare. The following is a tabular 
view of rights, without distinction between social and individual 
or moral : 



lie -i 

s 



Natural 

(Personal) 



Acquired 
(Political) 



j ./. f Personal Security. 

\ Self-defense. 

Labor. 

Enjoyment, etc. 
Material Products = 
Wealth. 
Intellectual Products = 
Knowledge. 
Moral Products = Char- 
acter. 

Natural Property = Natural Kesources or Land = A 
Trust. 

Elective Franchise = Sovereign Powers. 

Public Office = Representative Powers. 



Personal Existence 
Personal Activity = Liberty 



Personal Property = Prod- 
ucts of Will 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 433 

This classification may not be exhaustive in regard to partic- 
ular rights, but it contains them by implication. The right to 
justice, for instance, will be included in the various rights to 
security, wealth, knowledge, character, and 'liberty, they being 
forms in which it is realized. Indeed, we might even summa- 
rize all natural rights in the conception of justice, but it is best 
to differentiate them in the manner represented by the table. 
We may now consider each class by itself. 

1. Natural Eights. — By natural rights we mean those 
which are determined by the constitution of the subject, its neces- 
sary demands, and their relation to others. Man is an organic 
whole consisting of physical and mental characteristics, each of 
which demand certain supplies of energy in their support and 
development. His appetites and capacities seeking for develop- 
ment are impulses which are not of his own making, and in 
order to maintain his own self-preservation and to accomplish 
the end of his existence he must be granted the opportunity to 
meet his necessary wants. They are not of his own creation. 
His duties lie in the direction of perfecting himself, not to say 
anything of the interest to do so, which is the same in all persons. 
Hence with a nature and wants not of his own making and a 
demand for self-realization, he can claim from others the recog- 
nition of powers and liberty which he accords to them. This 
claim is his right by nature, not a right against nature and in 
relation to the physical world alone, but a right fixed by his own 
nature in relation to his equals. For instance, the right to per- 
sonal existence is determined by the demands of duty and inter- 
est upon self-protection. Were his personal existence indestruc- 
tible he would have no right to preserve it, because there would 
be no possibility of annihilating it. A right is the privilege of 
defense against injury and of liberty in action ; or we might say 
that it is an indispensable means to the maintenance of an end 
w T hich cannot produce itself. Hence, wherever man's nature 
makes it necessary to do certain acts protecting his physical and 
moral integrity, he will have a claim upon the respect and toler- 
ation of others to the extent of granting equal rights to them. 



434 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

They are all claims against interference or censure from others, 
with the limitations already discussed. But there is one impor- 
tant limitation still to be considered. It is the forfeiture of a 
right by the violation of it in others. Eights are not so absolute, 
even if they are natural, that they cannot be forfeited. They 
are all forfeitable when they are claimed or usurped against the 
equal rights of others. Hence they are not so sacred as the 
object for which man exists and are wholly subordinated to it. 
They exist as consequences of man's nature, and must harmonize 
with the ultimate object of that nature, though they are socially 
determined as we have already shown. Each of them may be 
considered briefly, with the particular principle upon which it 
depends. 

(a) The Right to Personal Existence or Self-preservation. — It 
is clear that this is not a right against nature, because no man 
has the power to maintain it, except for a time. But it is de- 
termined negatively by the consideration that if it is not 
granted, social order is impossible. We have to choose between 
social order and denying the right of self-preservation. As long 
as the former is a desirable object, not to say anything of the 
continuance of the species, the right of self-preservation must be 
conceded as a condition of its attainment. The positive defense 
of the right is the duty to realize the best possible objects with- 
in the reach of the will, assuming, of course, that there are 
duties of any kind. It is a right, however, too generally ad- 
mitted and too well fortified by the necessities of life to require 
any fuller justification. This is not so true of the next two 
rights. 

(b) The Bight to Personal Activity or Liberty. — This right is 
a corollary of the first. Self-preservation and the attainment of 
the objects of life require such immunity in conduct as will 
make them possible. The imposition of unfair restrictions upon 
the will must defeat them, and hence that liberty must be guar- 
anteed which will enable the subject to pursue the highest aims 
of life, be they happiness, perfection, or other ends. This will 
be a condition both of his doing it and of being virtuous out of 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 435 

his own volition. The only limitation is the equal rights of 
others and the duties of the subject. Its sphere is all moral and 
indifferent actions, individual and social. Man has some end to 
realize whether it be obligatory or indifferent. In case it is 
obligatory, nothing can be clearer than his right to pursue it 
untrammeled by foreign infringement. He has faculties ad- 
justed to certain desirable or imperative ends, and hence it is 
either his duty or his interest to exercise them. That it is his 
duty to exercise them is apparent from the fact that what we 
call punishment or evil consequences attach to the neglect of 
that exercise. "But the fulfillment of this duty (or interest) 
necessarily presupposes freedom of action. Man cannot exercise 
his faculties without certain scope. He must have liberty to go 
and to come, to see, to feel, to speak, to work; to get food, 
raiment, shelter, and to provide for each and all of the needs of 
his nature." His right, therefore, is only a legitimate claim 
upon others' forbearance and protection, provided he accords 
the same to them. 

Aside from this general deduction of liberty as an abstract 
right there are other considerations that enhance its value and 
justify its protection. Among the most important is the fact 
that, with due prevention of crime, endowment of personal lib- 
erty not only insures better moral character when attained at 
all, and even conditions it, but it also opens the way to a larger 
voluntary supply of the world's wants in goods. Every man 
works harder, produces more, and is more content when his 
activity is free and voluntary. A labor of love always effects 
more than one of drudgery, and hence apart from its abstract 
necessity for the sake of consistency it comes to us justified by 
expediency. It supplies the largest possible amount of human 
wants whether they be expressed in terms of happiness, perfec- 
tion, or material wealth. It is the best condition for meeting 
the demands of natural selection and directing the natural in- 
clinations in the channel in which they will be most useful and 
productive. Hence it applies with equal force to every form of 
activity, physical, intellectual, and moral. Its corollaries, 



436 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

therefore, are freedom of labor, freedom of avocation or employ- 
ment, freedom of trade, freedom of opinion, freedom of con- 
science. All these have vindicated themselves by the results 
of experience, though they have been of slow growth. They 
mark the efforts to secure justice and equality and are condi- 
tions of them, assuming the proper circumstances. 

But there are limitations to the granting of the right to lib- 
erty which are distinct from the equal rights of others. This 
latter is a formula which applies strictly to a world in which all 
are equal in powers, desires, and character. But the fact is that 
we find very great inequalities in men. They are unequal in 
their physical, mental, and moral endowments. They are par- 
ticularly unequal in moral character, which makes the conferal 
of liberty upon them dangerous. Consequently there is no 
definite criterion of the amount of liberty which it is safe to 
confer, except what the degree of power, culture, and morality 
may justify. The right, therefore, has degrees, or must be de- 
termined by the probabilities of its use or abuse. It is forfeit- 
able as are all others, and requires certain stages of individual 
perfection and social development to secure it against easy for- 
feiture. Criminals and the insane are illustrations of its for- 
feiture, the one for moral and the other for natural defects. 
But besides forfeiture for defects, it may be limited by age and 
education, even when there are no traces of criminality or in- 
sanity. Thus it is a right wholly subordinated to the ethical 
ends of society, and determines duties in others only in propor- 
tion as the subject respects it as a moral qualification and oppor- 
tunity to serve those ends of his own will. 

(c) The Right to Personal Property. — By personal property 
I shall mean that which is the product of a man's own effort or 
labor. It is illustrated in man's implements and all objects of 
manufacture in which the value is increased over and above its 
raw or natural worth by the labor bestowed upon them. I shall 
therefore distinguish sharply between personal and what I shall 
call natural property. The distinction is usually between per- 
sonal and real property, in which " real " property denotes im- 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 437 

movable objects, including tenements as well as land or natural 
resources. But in the conception here advanced "personal" 
property includes houses and tenements as products of human 
labor, and so represents a value derived therefrom. Lands or 
natural resources, however, do not ^derive their properties or value 
from human labor in the first instance, and hence must stand upon 
a different footing in the doctrine of rights. The distinction in 
positive law, affecting matters of transfer and criminality, is be- 
tween movable and immovable property. But in ethics the doc- 
trine of rights requires us to draw it at another point, and hence 
an extension of the term " personal " and the substitution of 
" natural " for "real." By " natural " property, however, I shall 
not mean that what a man has by nature, but only that the 
objects represented by it are natural in contrast with artificial 
objects, " personal " referring to the latter, and the former denot- 
ing what are called natural resources, such as lands, mines, water- 
power, forests, etc. AVith this distinction made clear in this man- 
ner, we may turn to the consideration of personal property and 
its possession as a natural right. The question of land will come 
up under political rights. 

That personal property is held by a natural as opposed to a 
political right, and without any claims of society upon it, except 
under limitations to be considered again, will be apparent from 
the law of desert in human conduct and the corollary implied by 
it. This is the deepest law of the moral world. It asserts or 
implies that every man ought to receive the benefits and to bear the 
evil of his own actions. The organization of rewards and penal- 
ties in civil society proceeds wholly upon this principle. Moral- 
ity and its judgments of approval and disapproval do the same. 
Indeed, morality could not exist without it. Now, it is simply a 
special application or corollary of this law T to say that every man 
is entitled to the benefits or results of his own labor. To deny 
this is to deny the law of desert, which denial would defeat all 
morality. Hence, on the principle of desert, we can affirm that 
a man has a natural right to the results of his own activity or 
labor. If he has not this right, social order is not possible, and 



4:36 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

no claim whatever can be made to the products of will, though 
we have supposed in the interest of self-preservation and self-reali- 
zation that a man has a right to liberty. Unless a man can be 
entitled to the results of his labor or activity, the right to liberty 
is wholly useless and nugatory. The use of what a man produces 
by his own exertion is essential to every object imposed by obli- 
gation and legitimate self-interest, so that a man must come by 
it on the ground of natural rights. It is not anything which 
can be wholly separated from the man, even when the public 
good requires the abridgment of the right. Support and pro- 
tection are still claimable, and must be substituted for the re- 
strictions upon the abuses of it. But where incapacity does not 
unfit the subject for liberty, the right is wholly exempt from lim- 
itations, except those that are most general. It simply follows 
from the assumed liberty of volition and carries with it the claim 
to every intended result of that act. 

To illustrate, a man who makes a hoe, a shovel, a reaper, or 
implement of any kind whatever, a house, a piece of cloth, or 
produces articles of food, has an unquestioned right to their 
ownership and use. No one else can claim them, though human- 
ity may require the sacrifice of them ; not on the ground of 
rights, but on the ground of duties. They are simply the mate- 
rialized or objective will of the subject and as much his ow T n as 
his volitions. The whole social and economic fabric is founded 
upon the principle, and to infringe it is to destroy that fabric by 
discouraging or nullifying the springs of activity and to grant to 
the non- workers and indolent freedom to enjoy what they do not 
produce. It is, therefore, absolutely indispensable to civilization, 
which is the survival of the morally fittest, even if that moral 
quality does not extend beyond the possession and exercise of 
prudence. 

But there are two important considerations in connection with 
this right which modify the naked and absolute assertion of it. 
The first is a limitation to the use or exchange of such property, 
governed by the right of the community to security against un- 
fair treatment in trade. The right to the ownership of such 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 439 

goods and their use for personal purposes may be granted to 
almost any extent, but the right to prey upon others' necessities 
by unfair enhancement of values must be abridged. That is, 
monopolies, even of such products, are inconsistent with the equal 
rights of others. But this is because of the second consideration. 
The second fact, therefore, is that the value of every product is 
compound, a union of the natural and the artificial values. 
Every article of 'a material kind represents the value which na- 
ture supplies and that which labor creates. It is difficult to fix 
absolutely the proportions of these, but the fact that both exist 
and are at least approximately determinable fixes a limit to the 
individual's control over the product of his labor. He is abso- 
lutely entitled only to the value which his labor creates, and that 
is not always easily assignable, while the value which nature 
and human wants give it are not his individual property at all. 
In character, and perhaps knowledge, the whole value belongs to 
the producer. In objects of physical manufacture this is not so, 
and hence monopolies either of natural or manufactured prod- 
ucts are subject to social regulation and only the results of the 
individual's labor can be claimed as his own. The only practical 
difficulty is to determine how much this is. 

It will be apparent from the principles here presented that 
current discussions about the right to private property too fre- 
quently fail to distinguish between personal and natural property, 
and also to recognize the effect of natural values complicated 
with the artificial in modifying the right to personal property in 
the concrete, where the product is conceived to have been wholly 
created by the subject's action. Hence there is much confusion 
on both sides of the controversy about Socialism. This doctrine 
generally appears opposed to private property, and is so in regard 
to land or natural resources. This antagonism is construed as 
an opposition to all private property. But in fact Socialism 
cannot stand without admitting the right to what I have called 
personal property. This is essential to its very existence. But 
what the Utopian in that field never perceives is that his theory 
is too broad to be ethical and so contradicts itself, and takes no 



440 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS - 

account of those moral, intellectual, and physical qualities in men 
which affect the values of their productions and prevent the 
equality of possession and control which it is the aim of an ideal 
society under ideal conditions to establish. 

2. Political Eights. — Political rights are characterized by 
more distinct limitations than personal rights. The reason is 
that they are claims from others on the ground of moral qualifi- 
cations for performing social duties, instead t)f claims against 
others on the ground of liberty in actions not affecting others. 
This peculiar difference between the two classes has already been 
mentioned. But there is also the fact to be noticed that political 
rights are based upon two characteristics : the first is man's duty 
to the commonwealth and the second his capacity for serving it. 
The absence of either characteristic puts an end to the enjoyment 
of the right, the conditions of incapacity being determinable by 
law. They are all conferred upon individuals only upon the 
condition of fitness to use them, and the criterion for this is pri- 
marily the age of majority, but modified by other considerations 
as the trust involved is more important. Each of them may be 
briefly considered. 

(a) The Right to Natural Property. — We have already dis- 
tinguished between private property in land or natural resources 
(land being the economic term for the latter) and property in 
one's own productions, and it remains to show that the two rights 
are different from each other, the latter being subject to more de- 
cided limitations than the former, if not in actual law, certainly 
in the ethics of the matter. The one reason that the individual 
cannot claim the right to property in land is that he has not 
created its utility, which is mainly the measure of its social value. 
The principle that a man is entitled to the intended result of his 
own action involves also the fact that a man cannot claim a 
value which he has not produced. If he could claim this, there 
would be no security for even personal property. Hence a man 
can lay no personal claim to natural resources beyond that which 
his social relations procure for him. All natural property or 
land belongs to society ; that is, men as an aggregate of persons, 



THEORY OF BIGHTS AND DUTIES 441 

and no one individually has more right to it than another. The 
fact that all have an equal right to it takes it out of the category 
of personal property, where only the producer has a legitimate 
claim upon it, and makes it the joint possession of society, and 
dedicates it to the moral ends of the race rather than of the in- 
dividual against the race. 

This doctrine would seem to be the socialistic view. But such 
an interpretation of it would be a mistaken one. Socialism gen- 
erally assumes that land, at present, is not in possession of the 
state, and maintains that it should be transferred to the state. 
The doctrine here advanced is that it is at present fully owned 
by the state as a natural right, but granted to the individual as a 
political right, as a measure of expediency for securing the great- 
est possible amount of production. The proofs that the state 
actually owns all natural resources consist in the following facts : 
(a) The right of confiscation for public purposes ; * (6) the 
reversion of intestate lands to the state; (c) the existence of 
common lands which no one can appropriate ; (d) state control 
and distribution of unappropriated lands, as the homestead law in 
the United States. These facts show that natural resources are 
actually owned and controlled by the state at present rather than 
absolutely by the individual. What we call private property in 
land is in reality simply a social policy by which the state dis- 
tributes the responsibility for production among its citizens instead 
of assuming all of it to itself. This policy represents several char- 
acteristics, which constitute all that the institution of private 
property in land practically means : (a) Security of tenure ; (6) 
encouragement and protection of improvements; (c) exemption 
from political responsibility for poverty ; (d) the distribution of 
political and social pressure in determining the amount of pro- 

*The fact that personal property in the form of houses, etc., can 
be confiscated is no objection to the force of this argument, because it is 
the fact of immobility that necessitates the taking of it when land is 
taken. Were houses and tenements movable, like implements, they would 
not be confiscable. Chattels, knowledge, and character, all personal prop- 
erty, are not confiscable, showing that the principle holds good. 



442 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

duction. Private property in land is simply a political expedi- 
ent for accomplishing these ends, and some such measures would 
have to be adopted no matter what'term we employed to express 
the abstract rights of the system, and hence the controversy 
should not be regarding Socialism or the nationalization of land, 
because it is necessarily that already, but regarding the best means 
of realizing the moral purposes of society. The right is purely 
subordinate to these. 

(b) The Right to the Elective Franchise. — This right can be 
disposed of very briefly. It is the right to participate in the 
functions of government. That it is a political and not a natural 
right is proved by the facts, (a) that it is conditioned by the age 
of majority ; (Jf) that a period of residence is imposed upon 
foreigners before obtaining the right ; (c) that it is forfeited by 
crimes when this forfeiture is not a necessary consequence of pun- 
ishment ; (d) that it is limited to one sex. Its political character is 
so evident that there would be no reason to mention it, except for 
the very common tendency to speak of it as a natural right, and 
to distribute it without reference to the welfare of society. Ques- 
tions like that of universal suffrage and that of its extension to 
women are to be settled solely by questions of political expedi- 
ency. They should be limited or extended according to qualifi- 
cations. Fitness to fulfill social duties and to aid in government 
should be the criterion of the right. 

(c) The Bight to Office. — This is the right to perform the 
functions of government, and its determining principle ethically' 
is fitness, but politically it is the choice of the electorate. It has 
more distinctive limitations than the other political rights. The 
three rights are differently distributed, that to property in land 
having the widest distribution, being conferred in the interest of 
economic production. The right to the franchise is limited to those 
qualified by supposition to participate in government indirectly, 
and is conferred in the interest of defense against arbitrary power. 
The right to office, or to exercise the direct functions of govern- 
ment, is limited to the fewest possible individuals in order to 
avoid the inconvenience of democratic abuses, and supposes 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 443 

higher moral qualifications than either of the other political 
rights. 

III. THE GROUND OF RIGHTS.— In determining the ground 
of rights we intend to consider more than the mere relation of one 
person to another with their common relation to nature. We 
have to consider the nature of the subject of them at the same 
time. A right when possessed is the property of the man, and the 
question is whether there is any peculiar element of his nature 
other than his equality with others that determines the existence 
of his rights. We have supposed that B's duties are determined 
by A's rights, and that wherever a right exists in one person it 
indicates a correlative duty in others to respect it. This seems 
to make rights prior in nature to duties, so that moral obligation 
does not seem to extend beyond the social claims of others upon 
the subject, and thus rights seem to be without an ethical ground. 
There is reason to think, however, that the problem is not so 
simple, and that the ultimate ground of rights is either a duty 
somewhere or the value of personality. It cannot be a mere 
relation between two living beings, because if it were, all animal 
life could be said to have the same rights as man, both in rela- 
tion to man and in relation to each other. Hence, we must seek 
some more fundamental principle as the determining basis of 
rights. 

In order to accomplish this most effectively we must turn again 
to the divisions of rights and reconsider them briefly, adding a 
class which has not been mentioned, but which it is important to 
notice. We shall, therefore, divide all rights into animal and 
human rights. It is the latter class which w T e have considered, 
and which were divided into natural and acquired rights. We 
shall now need to take account of the division of natural into 
social and individual or moral rights. Social rights cover actions 
that are socially indifferent, actions that are not in conflict with 
the welfare of others. Individual or moral rights cover actions 
that are either individually indifferent or are personal duties. 
We have, then, four classes of rights to consider in determining 
whether duties are the basis of all or of only a part of rights, or 



444 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

whether they condition any rights at all. This difference in the 
kind of rights will make some difference in the statement of the 
case, as they are somewhat differently related to the fundamental 
principles which determine them. We have, then, to repeat, 
four divisions of rights to consider in ascertaining their rela- 
tion to morality. They are animal rights, and of human rights 
there are the social, the individual, and the political. Now for 
their relation to duty and morality. 

1st. Relation of Rights to Morality. — We take, first, the polit- 
ical rights. These undoubtedly have a moral basis, in the broad- 
est sense of that term ; for they depend upon the possession of 
certain moral qualifications, though these are or may be nothing 
more than mature intelligence and prudence. They are not 
claims which the individual can assert on the ground of his mere 
humanity. A man must be sane and capable of self-control in 
order to secure political rights. This is because a political right 
carries with it or implies a duty to others. The ability__tojper- 
form these duties, which is only to say that the moral capacity 
for doing certain services to others and protecting oneself is a 
condition to the conferal and enjoyment of political rights. If 
this capacity does not exist, then such -rights are not granted ; 
instance imbeciles, the insane, and criminals. Hence it is appar- 
ent that duty to society and to self, which exists only where 
there is capacity or the moral nature to realize it, is the condi- 
tion of one class of rights. 

The actual practice of politics may confer them upon certain 
individuals who do not deserve them. But men are quick to 
perceive that such persons ought not to receive them. This is 
only an indirect proof of the claim here made, and an ideal 
society would define their limitations more strictly in order to 
meet the case. But even in our defective social organization we 
draw the line somewhere and recognize the moral qualifications 
conditioning political rights, though we are somewhat lax in our 
judgment as to what constitutes moral qualifications. 

The deduction of individual or moral rights is not so easy. 
We have defined them as denoting exemption from censure. 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 445 

Broadly speaking, we are in the habit of saying that a man has 
a right to do what is not wrong, and we include both social and 
individual actions. But limiting ourselves to individual conduct, 
that which is not wrong includes two distinct classes of actions, 
duties and indifferent actions. Hence, to affirm a right is to 
assert the claim to liberty in the case of indifferent actions, free 
choice without censure for either alternative, and the claim to 
immunity in the exercise of duty, though not the liberty of 
exemption from obligation which we possess in the case of 
indifferent actions. The one is the right to perform person- 
ally indifferent actions, and the other is the right to perform 
personal duties. Each of these must be considered separately 
as the term " right " has not exactly the same import in both 
cases. 

First, the right to perform personal duties is beyond dispute 
founded upon the possession of these duties. It is primarily a 
right against the infringement of conscience by others. If the 
duties did not exist, the right to perform them would not exist, 
unless the actions were socially indifferent. How far and in 
what sense socially indifferent actions exist and condition rights 
will be determined again. But it is clear that an individual 
duty carries with it a right of performance against all claims of 
society, though no individual duties exist which can conflict with 
others' rights. This, however, is because others can have no 
rights where the individual has personal duties. If they had 
such rights then the sacrifice of personal duties could be com- 
manded. The whole doctrine regarding the freedom of conscience 
is an embodiment of the principle that a certain class of rights 
are dependent upon obligations. The right is a twofold one ; 
first, a claim for liberty against infringement, and second, a 
claim of the rightness of the action involved, which is one of the 
implications of the term rights, though applicable only where 
duties exist and because of those duties. This is one of the 
peculiar and significant ambiguities of the term, which connects 
it with duties, on the one hand, and impedes the reduction of its 
meaning to morality, on the other, unless an indirect connection 



446 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

with duty can be ascertained. This will be determined by the 
answer to the question whether rights covering indifferent actions 
are conditioned by duties." 

It must be frankly conceded that the moral deduction of 
rights in indifferent actions is not so easy. We shall have to dis- 
tinguish between those that are socially and those that are person- 
ally or individually indifferent in order to conduct the argument 
more effectively, though some statements may be made without 
the distinction. In the first place, indifferent actions are sup- 
posed to be without moral quality and unaccompanied by an 
obligation to perform them. They receive their name for this 
very reason. But it is to be remembered that the extent of this 
field may be very much exaggerated. In the first place, it may 
be questioned whether there are any indifferent actions. It may 
be a name for merely imaginary actions. Some have main- 
tained that all conduct must be either good or bad, and that 
every man has to choose between duty and sin. If this be true, 
rights can exist only in the sphere of duties ; for wrong excludes 
rights of all kinds, so that the term rights covers the negative of 
all that is wrong, and if there were any indifferent actions they 
would be included in it. The denial of indifferent actions is cer- 
tainly more defensible in the case of the individual than in that 
of society, for every action exercises more or less influence upon 
the individual agent, but may often be wholly unrelated to others. 
In the second place, if there are any actions indifferent to the 
welfare or interests of others than those who do them, this is a 
fact which eliminates all claims of others to interfere with liberty 
of volition, as by supposition no duty exists in others to interfere 
with them. In looking at both aspects of the problem we do not 
think it necessary to wholly deny the existence of indifferent 
actions. We believe that many actions are socially indifferent I 
that is, involve neither good nor evil consequences upon others, 
though in this highly complex civilization they are much less 
numerous than in the earlier ages of history. Economic and 
political solidarity, caused by the present industrial system, with 
its railways, telegraphs, marine service, division of labor, large 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 447 

and concentrated capital, and the mutual dependence upon each 
other involved in them, have given many actions a consequence 
which they would not possess in the earlier ages of man's devel- 
opment. The sphere of indifferent actions, therefore, socially 
considered, and hence of rights independent of duties, has been 
very much abridged. 

Now, assuming that there are no indifferent actions socially 
considered, the sphere of duties and rights would coincide, and it 
might be asserted that others' rights are conditioned by my 
duties toward them growing out of my relation to them, instead 
of making my duties the correlative of their rights. This po- 
sition is quite as rational as to condition my duties upon their 
rights, and the same principle might hold true to that extent to 
which I can be said to have duties toward others, whether there 
are indifferent actions or not. In fact it is possible, if not neces- 
sary, to maintain that the only reason for making rights appar- 
ently prior to duties — that is, conditional of duties in others — is 
that it is a convenient way to justify the application of force for 
sustaining them, while apart from legal and political necessities 
my duties to others and their moral personality may be the real 
ground of their rights. But the admission of socially indifferent 
actions and the supposition that rights exist with these when the 
subject has no duties regarding them, would do much to nullify 
all attempts to deduce rights from the existence of duties, and 
hence if successful at all we must turn elsewhere for an ethical 
deduction of rights. 

While it may be true that there are many socially indifferent 
actions, the same assertion may not be made of individual 
actions, or such as have their consequences for the subject alone. 
It is at least possible to maintain that every action has a nearer 
or remoter interest for the subject, so that none can be wholly 
indifferent to his good. If this be true, the choice can only be 
between the. right and the wrong, so that the sphere of rights and 
duties would coincide, the former being determinable by the 
latter, or at least possibly so. It is true that some, or even 
many, actions may ' be indifferent to certain ends, assumed to be 



448 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

paramount to all others. But this does not make them wholly 
indifferent to the moral personality of the subject, to whom all 
actions must ' have some reference for good or ill, directly or 
indirectly, proximately or remotely, so that the moral life is 
concerned in them and must determine rights to the extent to 
which that personality can make claims upon the respect of 
others. The duties of that personality — that is, his debts to the 
moral law — will depend somewhat upon the subject's nature and 
environment, and hence a grant of liberty involving rights will 
be necessary on the ground of personal worth to the extent to 
which they do not conflict with the equal rights of others. But 
as long as we are supposing that the actions are socially indiffer- 
ent, the question of social limitations will not enter, and the 
concession of both moral and social rights must be made on the 
ground of personality with its implied duties, which may be 
of both a superior and inferior imperativeness. If, then, we find 
that there are really no actions that are personally or individ- 
ually indifferent, but only of varying degrees of importance to 
the person concerned, we are obliged to take account of that 
importance in considering his rights, which will be determined 
wholly by the moral value w T e attach to him as a man and 
as a part of the social system to which he belongs. While 
a man's social duties, therefore, are determined by the rights of 
others, at least as construed by the body politic, both his social 
and moral rights may be determined by his own duties, not 
to others, but to the moral law T , so that rights in the last analysis 
would have an ethical basis.* 

It must be granted, however, that this conclusion will not 
appear so clear, if it be supposed that there are such things as 

* The difficulty in supposing that rights are ever founded upon duties 
comes wholly from the tendency to give the idea of duty nothing but 
a social content. It is true that it has this meaning in the majority of 
the incidents of life, but it also expresses the absolute imperative implied 
by the highest good, and so gives the notion of moral necessity priority to 
that of rights, which are purely social in the sense that only duties exist 
in a state of isolation. Distinguish, then, between personal and social 
duties and an ethical basis of rights becomes possible. 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 449 

absolutely indifferent actions, both personally and socially con- 
sidered. For, if absolutely indifferent actions exist and rights 
cover them, as they cover all that is not wrong, duty would 
not seem to be their ground. This is clear from an analysis of 
the two conceptions. Rights imply liberty, impunitive choice; 
duties imply moral necessity, non-impunitive choice (freedom 
of will still consisting with it). The distinction, then, would 
seem to be that while duties may condition rights against others' 
infringement, rights may still exist where specific duties in 
reference to the same actions do not exist. The same conclusion 
is confirmed by the doctrine of animal rights and the rights of 
the defective classes among men, such as the insane and im- 
becile. Neither animals nor the insane and imbecile can be 
said to have duties, and yet they are said to have rights. The 
fact in this instance is very strong for a non-ethical basis for 
rights. 

But an argument may be forthcoming which is of considerable 
significance. If it can be made out that irresponsible beings 
obtain their rights from the relation which their superiors sus- 
tain to the moral law, it would seem that they are thus indirectly 
traceable to duty, though not the duty of the subject of those 
rights. It might be maintained that the rights of animals and 
irresponsible persons are not strictly rights at all, and if this be 
admissible the relation of rights to moral personality would be 
quite definitely settled. But usage is too well established to 
evade the issue in this way and such rights must have a deduc- 
tion. We have already alluded to the possibility of deducing 
all rights from the duties of one person to another, reversing the 
order of dependence usually assumed, which grows or may grow 
out of the political necessity of enforcing a duty in protection of 
a right where that duty is not appreciated or efficient. At the 
same time such a doctrine must assume certain qualities in 
the subject of rights which are equally their condition along 
with the duties that others owe them. But it does not admit 
that rights can originate wholly apart from a relation to duty 
somewhere. At any rate, it must be clear, that irresponsible 



450 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

beings, whether animal or human, can have no rights except in 
relation to rational beings ivho have duties. They have no rights 
in relation to each other, and it is equally true that rational be- 
ings have, strictly speaking, no rights, but only power against 
all non-moral and irresponsible forces ; that is, no rights in any 
sense that they can exact a duty of irrational agencies. Hence 
in both of these it is apparent, first, that whatever rights are at- 
tributed to animals and non-rational beings, are determined by 
their relation to those who are subject to the moral law, and 
second, that personality is the condition of such rights as rational 
beings can claim against each other. If, then, a duty in the sub- 
ject of rights does not always determine them, a relation to duty 
in moral agents will be indispensable to their existence at all. 
Such a conclusion will apply to indifferent actions, social or per- 
sonal. If they are personally indifferent, their value as condi- 
tions of personal freedom, which is important in self-development, 
establishes a right against others on the ground of their general 
duty belonging to the personality of the subject. This is more 
especially true of socially indifferent actions, which may never be 
personally indifferent. Though such rights are borrowed, as it 
were, from the duties of others to the subject of them, they prove 
that there is no possibility of rights without rationality and 
moral law somewhere, and that suffices to give rights an ethical 
basis. We may, therefore, examine the specific characteristics 
with their implied relation to moral beings, which determine the 
existence of rights. 

2d. Specific Grounds or Basis of Rights. — The establishment 
of a general moral basis for rights was accomplished only by as- 
suming different points of view for the various kinds of rights. 
We found that the duties of the subject did not determine all 
of his rights, and that if they existed without the presence of 
duties some other ground would have to be determined unless 
we could find a relation to the duties of others as a basis for 
rights. This necessitated the recognition of more than one ele- 
ment in the problem, and implied that the ground for some 
rights might be found in the nature of the subject, and some in 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 451 

the nature of the person who is called upon to respect them ; 
always, however, in some relation to the moral law as a funda- 
mental condition of them. Hence in selecting the particular 
characteristics w T hich determine rights, or are one element of 
them, we must recognize the complex or synthetic nature of 
their ground and distinguish between the subjective and the 
objective conditions of rights. Each of these will be briefly 
considered. 

1. Subjective Conditions of Eights. — By subjective con- 
ditions of rights we mean those characteristics which are found 
in the subject of rights and which are their primary conditions. 
Beings having these characteristics, other things being equal, 
will be entitled to rights of some kind, though they are 
variously related to the moral law. These characteristics are 
as follows : 

(a) Sensibility. — Sensibility entitles the subject of it to such 
rights as exemption from unnecessary pain or cruelty. Beiugs 
possessing this alone have not the rights w T e attribute to rational 
creatures, because they seem in no way an end to themselves, and 
yet the moral law commands that they be respected to the ex- 
tent that they are subjects of pain. This represents the field of 
animal rights, and it applies to the sensible sphere of all beings. 
The moral ground, of course, is the duty of others to avoid caus- 
ing unnecessary pain. Hence it is not the mere possession of sen- 
sibility that determines them, but this in relation to the moral 
personality of others. But without this characteristic no rela- 
tion to the moral law in others would determine them. But 
wherever we find sensibility to pleasure and pain with 'this rela- 
tion, we affirm the existence of rights as a mode of protection 
against unpunished infringement. Hence the term applies to 
animals to w T hom duty does not apply. 

(6) Personality. — By personality we mean those distinctive 
qualities which constitute the higher nature of man and elevate 
him above the mere brute. We may summarize them in intel- 
lectual and moral capacity or rationality in the highest and 
most comprehensive sense of the term. This is usually assumed 



452 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

to constitute a person who 'is entitled to respect on account of in- 
trinsic qualities, not usable merely as a means to an end. The 
completion of personality will involve both intelligence and 
moral capacity, the latter being required to condition all rights 
above the grade of the animal and defective classes. What we 
have called moral rights will be absolutely conditioned by this 
characteristic. The conditioning power of personality is peculiar 
when compared with sensibility, in the fact that it produces that 
worth in the subject which determines the existence of moral 
rights, not merely the right to others' respect, but the right to 
the impunities of conscience and the right, in the sense of the 
righteousness, of protection against the aggression of foreign 
forces, whether personal or impersonal. But aside from this, it 
is a characteristic which places in the subject the same reason 
for the existence of rights as is found in other personalities for 
the existence of duties. That is to say, personality determines 
duties, and these will determine rights more conclusively than 
mere sensibility, and determine them in a way in which they are 
not merely a reflex of others' duties to the moral law. 

2. Objective Conditions of Rights. — The relative im- 
port of the term rights in every application except that denoting 
the rightness of the actions coming under the protection of that 
idea, makes it necessary to recognize other conditions besides the 
sensibility and personality of the subject. Inasmuch as rights 
are claims against the interference of others who are presumably 
able and obliged to respect them, they cannot strictly be said to 
exist unless those conditions exist which make that duty possible. 
Hence, conditions independent of the subject are necessary for the 
existence and determination of rights. There are two of these 
conditions. 

(a) Relation to Moral Personality. — Before any being, whether 
rational or irrational, can properly be said to have rights, there 
must exist moral persons or agents to whom it is related. The 
two must exist in a social relation, or in some relation involving 
more or less of a common reference to nature and its resources. 
As rights are claims of immunity against foreign infringement, 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AXD DUTIES 453 

some agent must exist of whom it is rational to expect a regard 
to such a claim. If that agent does not exist, if there are no 
rational beings other than the subject of the rights supposed, 
there is no reason to speak of rights at all. There are only 
creatures with powers under this assumption and the only rela- 
tion is that of physically superior and inferior. Hence, in spite 
of being either sensible or rational, quite as important a condi- 
tion to the subject is the fact that there should be moral per- 
sons to whom that subject shall be related in some way. This 
is clear from the fact that the animals have no rights in relation 
to each other, and that man has no rights in relation to animals. 
But as soon as either of them come into a social relation to 
man, or other men, the possession of rights originates. The 
duty or duties which such persons owe either to those of their 
own kind or to the moral law which condemns all unnecessary 
infliction of pain, or waste of life, even when nothing but the 
lower animals are involved, comprehends the right of others 
to protection against aggression, not necessarily on account of 
their own inherent worth, but on account of the worth of the 
moral law. 

(b) The Liberty and Responsibility of Such Persons. — It is not 
enough that other persons than the subject should exist and be 
in a certain relation to those who are supposed to have rights ; 
that is, a territorial or social relation ; but those who are sup- 
posed to have rights must not in any of their relations and con- 
duct endanger the life or stand in the way of the legitimate de- 
velopment of those who are supposed to owe them duties. The 
persons who are to confer and respect these rights must have a 
duty to the beings concerned and must not have their liberty 
infringed by circumstances which make defensive action neces- 
sary against possible or actual aggression. In this way we find 
a relation to moral law somewhere absolutely necessary to 
rights ; a basis is gained for making man's duties more than a 
hypothetical obligation to respect rights which without such a 
basis would at best represent nothing but an optional end and 
emancipate conscience the moment that it discovered such lib- 



454 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

erty as making rights ultimate would imply. We next take up 
duties. 

III. THE NATURE OF DUTIES.— The doctrine of rights has 
shown us that duty is not merely a correlative of them, but may 
also express moral imperatives beyond the sphere of rights and 
representing moral claims upon conscience which would be valid 
independent of social conditions. We have now to examine the 
nature and ground of such obligations. They represent those 
actions which the moral law makes necessary, and hence in the 
idea will be found the full import of ethics and its distinction 
from the object of all other sciences and interests. If duties do 
not exist, there can be no such a thing as ethics and morality ; 
only liberty to do as we please could be the result of denying 
the legitimacy of duty and its ultimateness. If it exist, how- 
ever, and is prior to the existence of rights, and is not resolvable 
into the merely conditional necessity of adopting a particular 
means to an optional end, it determines a moral imperative, or is 
that imperative, which represents one of the sublimest objects of 
human contemplation, carrying in its contents and meaning the 
Avhole destiny of man. 

1st. Definition of Duty. — We have already seen that the ety- 
mological import of the term is that of a debt. This implies that 
the duty must always be to some one, and Mr. Martineau thinks 
the idea has no meaning except as expressing this relation to 
another person, divine or human. This may be true for all the 
social relations of life and for the religious consciousness which 
involves a relation of man to his Creator, a relation somewhat like 
that of subject to sovereign. But if we limit its contents to 
social relations, unless we accepted the existence of God, there 
would be no reason to suppose a moral imperative binding upon 
a man apart from a definite social relation to another person. 
And yet we instinctively feel that a man in his individual 
capacity ought to do certain things whether he accepts religious 
postulates or not, and without any relation to others; that 
is, in a state of isolation. To be sure, his responsibilities 
in such a condition would not be great, because outside the 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 455 

social state the possibilities of moral attainment might not 
be very great. But such as they would be, they would have all 
the imperativeness of duties to others, whether or not there were 
"any influences, internal or external, to make them efficient. 
That the religious postulate is not absolutely necessary to feeling 
this imperative is proved by the fact that many feel it who do 
not accept such a postulate. You may say that the whole objec- 
tive meaning of duty is lost unless this religious condition be 
accepted, and this claim may be true. But it does not effect the 
subjective or psychological presence of duty which is not condi- 
tioned by any theoretical ideas whatever. Where it exists at 
all it is a constitutional part of the subject prior to any theolog- 
ical conception of its ground and meaning, and it is the nature of 
it as a fact of human consciousness that we are trying to deter- 
mine, not the object of it or its import relative to other beings. 
Moreover, to condition its existence upon that of rights would be 
to eliminate it altogether where rights were not possible, and to 
make the person a libertine for the lack of a principle to assert 
the claims of morality. And, again, there could be no individ- 
ual morality with reference to the subject's own perfection and 
welfare, if we gave the notion a purely social content. Hence, 
concluding that it applies in a state of isolation from our fellows 
and without the prior admission of theological postulates, we 
must define it as an absolute datum of rational intelligence, not 
a mere correlate of something that may or may not exist. The 
widest possible meaning of the term, therefore, is the feeling 
of oughtness, that feeling of constraint or respect, necessity or v~~ 
imperativeness, which makes a man responsible for the choice of the 
ideal. It is here that it most distinctly contrasts with the idea 
of rights. Rights imply liberty and impunity in choice, exemp- 
tion from infringement and censure. Not so the idea of duty. 
It admits of no exemption from consequences that are not de- 
sired by the subject. It permits of no alternatives that will free 
the conscience from culpability. It holds up but one possibility 
to the will without suffering for deviation from a moral selec- 
tion. The will is free to choose under it, but not free to escape 



456 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

the consequences which it may desire to escape. It is constrained 
by the ideal to respect it, or to accept certain disagreeable con- 
sequences. Hence it expresses no indifference of choice, but 
imposes a law upon the will which must be either one of respect 
for the ideal and contempt for its opposite, or one of conflict 
against natural inclinations. One conception of the term limits 
it to the notion of a struggle with interest, but another and higher 
conception of it involves respect for the ideal without any tempta- 
tion of interest. The former represents a less developed morality 
and the latter the most highly developed moral consciousness. 
However, the common conception is that of conflict with in- 
terest, and hence it is only in philosophic parlance that it 
has come to denote reverence for law, where it takes on the 
proper ethical meaning. It thus expresses moral necessity 
and limitations, but without the notion of restraint. In other 
words, it is the sense of moral law, though it assumes two 
forms, the higher and the lower, reverence for right and the 
fear of the wrong. 

2d. The Ground of Duty. — The definition of duties, though 
it makes them absolute, is only formal and does not indicate the 
end which completes their true meaning. Moreover, the abso- 
luteness of duty, as mentioned, does not imply that no reason 
can be given for its existence or validity, but only that the idea 
can not be reduced or resolved into the necessity of choosing 
certain means to an optional end ; as, for instance, the duty to 
pay for a coat, if I buy it. But it expresses the absence of all 
alternatives to impunitive selection. Its absoluteness is merely 
its limitation of the subject to the moral choice in volition. 
This conception of its absoluteness, therefore, does not prevent us 
from giving a reason or ground for its existence and validity. 
As a state of consciousness affecting conduct it always points 
to an end, and hence it remains to show what object or end 
gives it the sacredness and imperativeness which it always 



In determining the ground of duty, or all the duties of man, 
some respect must be paid to the several theories of morality, 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 457 

which in reality are attempts to assign this very basis. When 
we ask why such and such an obligation is binding we give some 
end which the act is to realize, some principle which the act 
embodies, or the authority of some power over the subject of the 
duty. Hence we may answer with the utilitarian that this end 
is happiness, with the formalist that it is conformity to the law 
of rationality, and with the theologian that it is obedience to 
the will of God. But we think an answer can be given which 
evades these several controversies and possibly reconciles them. 
The ground of obligation, therefore, is one which is identical 
with perfectionism, though not expressed in the terms of that 
theory, and is the principle by which Kant supplemented the 
formal character of his own moral law. This ground we ex- 
press in the maxim, Every man should treat his own and the person 
of others as an end in itself, and not merely as a means. Person- 
ality may be a means to an end, but if conduct be moral it can 
never use man merely as a means. Hence moral law requires 
respect for the intrinsic worth of rational personality, as an end 
which need not look beyond itself to some remoter end. That 
this form of stating the ground of duty is better than that which 
is expressed in terms of utility or happiness is evident from the 
fact that we cannot make the happiness or pleasure of others our 
object without doing more injury than good. We may aim to 
produce conditions by which they may win their own happiness. 
But to produce the happiness directly and without their co-oper- 
ation is simply to multiply inertia and indolence. Hence the 
proper end of our action toward others, whatever we accept as 
the motive of our own, is to look at their personality as a whole, 
not to produce in them mere good feeling. They are to be treated 
not merely as means to our own ends, but as ends on their own 
account. We may be influenced by their happiness, but not by 
that alone. Its complement, perfection, and their person as an 
end in itself must be considered. On the other hand, this object 
does not conflict with the theological doctrine. We may refer 
to the will of God as a reason for obedience, and this will may 
be one of the sanctions, but not the ground, of morality. We 



458 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

may still ask on what ground we should obey this will, and the 
only final answer that can be given in the case would be the 
ultimate end which such conduct realized. And we could 
hardly suppose the will of God to be just unless it aimed, in its 
injunctions, at the perfection and happiness of man ; that is, 
intended that man should treat himself and be treated as an end 
in himself. Thus the theological point of view in its last analy- 
sis would be resolved into the position just maintained, and gets 
its value solely from being a motive efficient in morality with 
religious minds where the abstract philosophic statement in 
which the theological doctrine culminates would present no such 
power over the will. Hence the only way to state the ultimate 
ground of duty, free from the confusion of controversy, is to put 
it in terms of man's intrinsic worth as a person and an end in 
himself. 

3d. The Divisions of Duty. — The divisions of duty will mani- 
fest the necessity of asserting some such ground for morality as 
is here presented, while they at the same time evince the fact 
that the contents of morality are not wholly social. As long as 
we conceive man as an end in himself, and not merely a means, 
we are obliged to consider duty as valid outside of social rela- 
tions, even though many of its contents would be eliminated by a 
state of individual isolation. But the ultimate principle of duty 
would still apply by virtue of the moral consciousness of oneself 
as an end. As in fact, however, we are not independent of social 
relations,, we cannot discard them in our recognition of the na- 
ture and extent of obligation. But the two conditions give rise 
to two distinct classes of duties. One of them is duties to self, 
often called individual duties, but which I prefer to call personal 
duties ; the other is duties to others, generally called social duties. 
The former I shall subdivide into duties of self-preservation and 
duties of self-development. The first of them may be called de- 
fensive and the second progressive duties, the latter being farther 
divided into self-culture and self-control. Social duties may be 
divided into those representing a regard to rights and those rep- 
resenting a regard to personality apart from rights. I shall dis- 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 



459 



tinguish these two forms as Justice and Benevolence, 
ing table summarizes this classification : 



The follow- 



Personal 



Social 



Life. 

Liberty. 
Property. 

f The True = Science 

Self-culture Th ^Si = A* 

[ ^Esthetics. 
_ Self-control = The Good = Morality, 
f Legality. 
\ Equity, 
f Friendship. 
Benevolence -I Magnanimity. 
[ Charity, etc. 



Defensive 



Progressive 



Justice 



In this classification we must not mistake the true meaning of 
the distinction between personal and social duties. Personal or 
individual duties express the subject of obligation, but social 
duties do not imply that society is the subject of them, because 
society is only an abstraction and is not a person. It is only a 
name for a collective whole of individuals or persons exercising 
certain social functions. This being the case it is apparent that 
all duties are individual or personal in respect of the subject of 
them, and hence the distinction between the two classes is not 
between the subjects, but between the objects, of duty. In per- 
sonal duties the subject is also their object ; in social duties the 
person having them is the subject and other persons or beings are 
the objects of them. In personal duties the subject and ob- 
ject are the same ; in social duties they are different. This con- 
ception of the matter is important in order to obtain a correct 
view of the methods of moralizing man. In the last analysis the 
individual subject of duty must be the unit of morality, and any 
attempt to consider it otherwise only hypostasizes an abstraction. 

In this classification also Benevolence has a very comprehen- 
sive import. I intend it to express good will beyond the mere 
province of rights. Its full meaning will be made clear in the 
brief examination of the grounds of social duties. 

4th. The Import of Personal Duties. — The general ground of 
duties has been shown to be personality. Of personal duties it 



460 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

can be expressed in the formula that every man should treat his 
own person as an end in itself and not merely as a means. This 
conception secures the existence of duty apart from social rela- 
tions and conditions, and bases it upon the constitutional nature 
of the subject. Morality thus has a profounder basis than mere 
rights which may express nothing but the liberty to perform 
indifferent actions, supposing them to exist. It provides a 
necessary course of action and ends, while rights imply the choice 
of any alternative and immunity from infringement or censure. 

The only farther question raised by the assertion of personal 
duties is whether there are any duties which are only personal. 
The fact is that in a social order self-defense and self-develop- 
ment also involve the interests of others to a greater or less 
extent. This is especially true in our highly complex civiliza- 
tion with its intellectual, social, political, and industrial soli- 
darity of interests. Self-preservation, therefore, is not always a 
mere duty to self as an end, but may be a duty to others either 
dependent upon us by virtue of obligations we have ourselves 
assumed, or for whom we are capable of performing a benevolent 
service. Self- culture and control may redound both to the ben- 
efit of the community and to posterity, who may inherit the 
results of it. Such being the case personal duties may have a 
double ground : the first by virtue of a man's duty to his own 
person, and second, by virtue of the extent to which the welfare 
of others is involved in the development of the subject's own 
personality. 

5th. The Import of Social Duties. — The same general ground 
applies to social as to personal duties, but it would be formulated 
with reference to the object of them; thus, every man should 
treat the person of others as an end in itself, and not merely as 
a means. There is, however, an additional fact which helps to 
distinguish the ground of social from that of personal duties. 
Social duties are based upon rights, personal duties upon per- 
sonality. There is a still further distinction between the grounds 
of justice and benevolence which will be considered in its place. 

1. Justice. — The conception of justice is a complex one. It 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES' 461 

is not always used in the same sense. It will, therefore, be neces- 
sary to examine it briefly and to determine the exact scope of its 
meaning. 

(a) Definition of Justice. — The meaning of the term was at 
first quite identical with right or moral. This is especially 
noticeable in early Greek writers and Plato. The reason for this 
was the fact that the sphere of morality did not extend beyond 
social customs and duties, and though Plato proposed a higher 
foundation for morality than custom, he did not distinguish be- 
tween personal and social duties, and hence the content of all mo- 
rality was expressed by justice (SiKOLioGvvrj), which denoted 
equally personal righteousness and right social conduct or obe- 
dience to the laws. Aristotle drew the distinction between civil 
and moral justice, by which he meant mere conformity to the law, 
in the one case, and voluntarily righteous conduct toward others, 
in the second case. This was practically the distinction between 
objective or external and subjective or internal morality, though 
he did not carry the doctrine so far as to recognize personal 
duties independent of the social. All morality was still social 
with Aristotle. But the distinction between justice that was en- 
forced by law and justice that was voluntarily done was the in- 
ception of the distinction between morality and mere conformity 
to law, and did much to limit the notion of justice to its modern 
import of merely correct social conduct. 

There is, however, another meaning of the term which has all 
along accompanied the development of the one just mentioned. 
It is that which identifies the term with retributive punishment. 
The same general import is at the basis of this as of the former 
conception, but it is not noticeable on the surface.. But a com- 
prehensive definition must include it. Hence the broadest defi- 
nition of justice will be that it is the maintenance of desert. This 
comprehensive conception includes respect for rights and the de- 
fense of them when violated. The former involves conformity to 
law and the latter the punishment of its violation. This distinc- 
tion gives rise to the divisions of justice, which may be briefly con- 
sidered. 



462 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

(6) Divisions of Justice. — The distinction between justice as 
respect for rights, whether enforced or voluntary, and the inflic- 
tion of penalties for infringing rights, is expressed by the divis- 
ion of justice into Positive or Tributive justice and Negative or 
Punitive justice. The former concerns the doing of such actions 
as others may demand of us, the latter concerns the treatment of 
wrong actions. The formula for covering both forms of it may 
be expressed as follows and given the character of a maxim : 
Every man should respect and protect rights, so that social wrong 
may neither be done nor suffered, and that social right may pre- 
vail. Each of these divisions has its sub-divisions according as 
the justice is determined by forms of conduct, or by forms of 
punishment. Positive or tributive justice we divide into Le- 
gality and Equity. Legality is mere conformity to positive laws, 
supposed to express the rights of men, and exempts the subject 
from legal penalties. Equity is respect for rights apart from 
and without legal requirement, and represents moral motives in 
social conduct. It is interesting to observe that there may be a 
conflict between legality and equity, considered in their objective 
aspects. Objectively legality is presumptively based upon 
equity, but positive laws may conflict with strict equity, and 
hence when this is the case the latter has the binding quality, 
though there may be nothing to make it effective. They are 
distinguished, however, in the following manner. Legality ex- 
empts from civil, and equity from moral, penalties. Moreover, 
legality cannot be more than objectively right conduct, equity 
will be subjectively as well as objectively right conduct. Equity 
is, of course, the object of law, but the casuistry of life and its 
conditions often makes mere legality a shield for manifold 
forms of injustice. Hence the value of equity as the basis of 
justice, or the ideal at which legality is supposed to aim. 

The divisions of negative or punitive justice are Corrective 
and Retributive punishment. Preventive " punishment " is not 
included here because it is not when taken alone so much a 
means of maintaining justice as of defense against injury from 
every source whatsoever, whether personal or impersonal. Since 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 463 

it is a measure to protect men against irrational as well as 
rational beings, it would comprehend more than the maintenance 
of justice, strictly so called, which is defended in behalf of rights, 
while rights cannot exist, except in persons, or in a relation to 
persons. Purely preventive measures, therefore, do not secure 
justice, but merely protection against injury from superior power. 
We consequently recognize only two forms of punitive justice. 
The following table summarizes the divisions of justice : 

{Legality = Conformity to 'positive law. 
Equity = Conformity to moral law. 



Positive 



Punitive 



{Corrective punishment = Eeformative discipline. 
Retributive punishment = Compensatory discipline. 

(c) General Principles of Justice. — There is a peculiarity in 
connection with every form of justice which cannot be over- 
looked. It is based somehow upon the idea of equality, at least, 
equality of some kind, and yet the recognized inequality of men 
creates some curiosity to know what equality it is that is embod- 
ied in the notion of justice and its implications. The usual doc- 
trine is that all men are equal before the law, and justice is 
spoken , of as regarding all men as equal. The statement, how- 
ever, is misleading. It is not true that all men are equal either 
intellectually, morally, or physically, though the law must treat 
them as equals, if not in one sense, certainly in another. The 
reason for this is found in the following facts. 

Justice is founded upon rights and the duty to respect them. 
It, therefore, deals with the social relations between men and 
such actions as affect the welfare of society. Consequently its 
subject matter is objective morality, which is purely a question of 
external results to men, and is not concerned with motives. To 
establish and maintain justice is to see that each man's rights are 
secured and social order preserved, and it matters not what the 
motives of the agent are in effecting this end. It is the result 
which is desired, and though it would be morally better if it 
could be obtained by respect to equity, it is sufficient if it is ac- 
complished only by legality. Now, the attainment of objective 



464 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

morality does not require equality between men. It is the nat- 
ural consequence of certain actions without regard to motives or 
the degree of intelligence. Thus the payment of a debt, the per- 
formance of honest conduct, the telling of the truth, or the ful- 
fillment of a promise can each be done by persons of all degrees 
of moral, intellectual, or physical inequality, though the effects 
of their actions are equal. It is, therefore, the equality of the 
effects of men's actions that determines their equality before the 
law, and no differences can be justly permitted on the ground of 
social, moral, or other differences. Thus an act of embezzlement 
by a rich man causes as much evil, or the same consequences, as 
by a poor man ; the effect of not paying a debt is the same what- 
ever the motive, social standing, or commercial ability of the 
agent ; the right to equal wages is determined by equal produc- 
tion or equal services ; where services vary wages must vary. 
The penalties for crime are the same for all persons without dis- 
tinction of wealth or character, because the injustice done is not 
affected by these considerations. As an illustration of the same 
principle it is uniformly recognized that, in theory as least, piece 
wage is more just than a time wage, because it rewards accord- 
ing to economic services. On the other hand, it no more hinders 
injustice by the laborer than time wages, as he can " scamp " his 
work under both systems. In piece wages he can exert himself 
to increase the quantity of production at the expense of quality 
and thus increase his wages. This and all industrial phenomena 
show that the standard of justice iu the economic world is equal- 
ity of services, and injustice is inequality of services, the effect 
upon individuals not being determined by motives or any other 
considerations of character whatsoever. Hence the problems of 
justice, whether positive or punitive, turn about objective moral- 
ity and are based upon it, where volitions are equal, without 
regard to conditions of character. 

An exception to this is apparent in the case of capital pun- 
ishment and perhaps a few other penalties, where the distinction 
of severity is based upon motives and not upon the consequences. 
Also the modern theory of indefinite periods of confinement for 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 465 

crime would seem to disregard the criterion of objective conse- 
quences altogether and treat men as unequal before the law. 
Moreover, public and private opinion often proceeds upon dis- 
tinctions of personal character and merit in the feelings that it 
exhibits and the distribution of rewards and penalties which it 
favors. From these facts it would appear that justice, positive 
and punitive, was not based wholly upon objective consequences. 
In reply to this objection, however, it is to be noted that in all 
instances of economic justice equality of services or of injury is 
the theoretical and practical standard of judgment. The penal- 
ties for every form of dishonesty are the same without distinc- 
tion of motive, standing, or intelligence. It is the same for every 
form of ordinary personal injury, and any application of an 
unequal standard on the ground of wealth, social position, or 
other qualification is universally condemned as unjust. In the 
second case we must distinguish between the basis and the object 
of justice. If rewards and penalties were purely compensatory 
in their object, they would never appear to conflict with the 
equality demanded in their basis. But they are preventive and 
corrective as well as compensatory, and this fact complicates 
them with the principles of benevolence, which disregards exter- 
nal considerations, or may do so, and takes account of distinc- 
tions in personal worth, or of future possibilities in this respect. 
Hence the degree of punishment, or of limitations to the will, 
depend upon the extent of the subject's responsibility and the 
possibility of his regeneration by discipline, but the kind of pun- 
ishment will depend upon the form of injustice committed ; that 
is, the kind of objective conduct and consequences. The same 
principle is true of rewards. They must be measured by respon- 
sibility and capacity to appreciate and use them rightly, though 
the right to bestow them depends upon objective social relations. 
This view ought to be apparent from the single fact that no pun- 
ishment is justifiable unless a social wrong has been committed, 
no matter what the motives or character of the subject in his 
conduct. The basis of justice, therefore, will be objective 
morality, though the object of it will be the reward of personal 



406 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

merit, on the one hand, and the reformation of the criminal, on 
the other, a fact which shows that justice has its connections 
with benevolence though its subject matter and ground are rights 
and objective morality. 

2. Benevolence. — After what has been said of justice little 
needs to be said of benevolence. The comprehensive import of 
the term, however, as here used and more or less contrasted with 
justice, requires a little attention. 

Ordinarily the term is synonymous with charity or kindness to 
the poor. But we here take it in its broader etymological import 
to denote good will toward man and beast. The term humanity 
exactly expresses its meaning and is often associated in the same 
way with the notion of justice. It is, therefore, that respect for per- 
sonality and sensitive beings which carries moral law and good will 
beyond the strict limits of either legality or equity and endeavors 
to overcome some of the inequalities of nature. It is the virtue 
that characterizes the magnanimity and pity of the strong for the 
weak, and is a universal duty of those who can avoid the unnec- 
essary infliction of pain, benefit the weak and helpless, or culti- 
vate social relations with equals. It is the one condition of all 
the higher life of man, and lies at the basis of whatever progress 
he has ever made in the course of his history. 

The ethical principle represented by it is found in those duties 
which are both independent of duties to self and supplementary 
to those founded upon the rights of other persons. Benevolence, 
therefore, is founded upon the rights of all creatures as deter- 
mined by man's duty to the moral law. This, however, is only a 
way of indicating that it has no foundation except its own worth, 
and that its object is respect for rights determined by the moral 
law, rather than by any moral personality in the subject of those 
rights. In other words, benevolence is not bound by any equality 
of its objects with the subject of it. And it is farther character- 
ized as a duty which cannot be legally, but only morally, exacted 
of the individual. The object of it cannot claim any natural 
right to it. It is a gratuity bestowed according to merit, or ac- 
cording to the subject's capacity and duty to do more for his fel- 



THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 467 

lows, when prudent, than social rights may demand. It is, there- 
fore, consistent with every form of inequality and endeavors by 
good will and sympathy to alleviate the ills and burdens of life. 
While justice deals with objective data, benevolence deals with 
the subjective, and acts accordiug to personal worth or merit, or 
according to the principle of humanity, which endeavors to lessen 
pain, so far as possible, and to distribute more evenly such as can- 
not be prevented, while it promotes happiness, or rather the 
conditions of it, as a means of reducing life's inequalities, espe- 
cially such as are artificial and due to the complexities of the 
social organism. 

IV. CONCLUSION.— The examination of rights and duties 
leaves us with an interesting result. They are found to have a 
very complicated relation. On the one hand, the correlation of 
duties with rights seemed to leave us with a foundation of duty 
which represented nothing but an optional end to sanctify them, 
which is equivalent to eliminating moral obligation altogether. On 
the other hand, duties seemed to have a range of sanctity and 
urgency that place them above mere impunitive actions, and to 
represent an imperative function of consciousness that is valid 
for man when he has no social relations to respect. Then, inas- 
much as rights could not exist at all except in relation to 
personality, which must be the basic principle of ethics, we 
found a way to place duty, in its most comprehensive import, at 
the basis of rights, and thus to give them an ethical import which 
otherwise they would not possess. Duty became the prior and 
conditioning principle of rights, first of the rights of the subject, 
and second of the object, or others. Consequently justice and 
benevolence, as well as the personal virtues, obtained a moral 
rather than a conventional foundation. 

References. — Trendelenburg: Naturrecht; Spencer: Social Statics, 
pp. 36-68 ; id., Principles of Ethics, Vol. II. ; Sidgwick : The Elements 
of Politics, Chapters VIII. and XIII. ; Kant: Metaphysik der Sitteu ; 
Godwin : Inquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I., Book II. 



INDEX 



Abelard, 58 

Act, 115,117,119,147 

^Esthetics, 9 

^Esthetic school, 83-86 

Altruism, 354, 361 

Ancient ethics, 19 

Anthropology, 11 

Appetites, 29 

Aristotle, 32-38, 256 

Authority of conscience, 274-282 

Automatic actions, 110, 307, 310 

Bad, 93 

Benevolence, 464 
Bentham, 364, 376 
Berkeley, 69 
Butler, 260 

Categorical imperative, 6. Also 

see Duty 
Causality and cause, 174-176, 190 
Character, 167, 185 
Christianity, 50-59, 258 
Clarke, 82 
Conscience, 106, 112, 144, 233-235, 

251-283, 284-349 
Conscientiousness. See Duty 
Consciousness, 110, 212 
Consequences. See End 
Conventional theory, 352 
Corrective discipline, 242, 462 
Cosmological theory, 351 
Cudworth, 83 
Cumberland, 83 

Darwin, 325-327 
Deliberation, 35, 194-212 
Descartes, 59, 62-64 
Desire, 23, 29, 271-274 
Determinism, 42, 159, 163-172 
Dorner, 261 
Dugald Stewart, 260 
Duty, 103-105, 454-467 ' 

Egoism, 354, 360 

Emotion, 106 

Empiricism, 287, 305-321, 355 

End, 120, 148 

English ethics, 78-88 

Environment, 188, 237, 321 



Epicureanism, 43-48 
Epicureans, 25, 38, 43-48, 257 
Epicurus, 43 
Ethics, definition of, 1-4 ; divisions 

of, 13; scope of, 14-17 
Eudsemonism. See Hedonism 
Evolution, 289, 334, 340 
Evolutionism, 321-348 
Experience, 317-319 
Experientialism, 288, 306 

Formalism, 354, 388-393 

Freedom of will, 35, 42, 65, 67-68j. 

70, 75, 111, 150-223, 229-233 
Freedomism, 159, 163, 172-224 
Furies, 253 

Genesis of moral ideas, 14 
Gnosiological theory, 355 
God, 50, 76, 77 
Good, 15, 93-97 

Habit, 170, 322 
Happiness, 362 
Hedonism, 353, 359-384 
Heredity, 168, 186, 238, 323 
Hobbes, 79-81 
Hume, 6, 69, 84-86 
Hutcheson, 83 

Ideal and the actual, 5 
Idealism, 64 

Imperative, categorical. See Duty 
Impulse, 29, 106, 125-130, 238 
Immutability, 226-229 
Indifferent actions, 443-450 
Indifferentism, 161, 163 
Indeterminism, 161, 163 
Individualism, 354 
Inhibition, 197-202 
Instinct, 106, 130-136, 311 
Intellectualists, 81-83 
Intuition, 295 

Intuitionalism, 286, 295-305 
Intuitionism, 355 

Judaism, 54-56 

Justice, 31, 36, 85, 460-466 

Kant, 6, 52, 68-78, 388 
Knowledge, 29, 36, 41, 106 



469 



470 



INDEX 



Leibnitz, 67-68 
Libertarianism, 159 
Liberty, 152, 434 
Locke, 81 
Logic, 8 
Lotze, 4 

Martineatt, 261, 378, 402 
Mechanical laws, 174 
Mediaeval ethics, 50 
Metaphysics, 12 
Mill, J. S., 376 
Modern ethics, 59-88 
Moral, 101-103 
Moralism, 354, 385-393 
Morality, 101-103, 110, 407 
Morality and religion, 398-423 
Moralization, 282 
Moral responsibility, 228-237 
Moral rights, 426 
Moral sense, 83-86 
Motivation, 271-274 
Motives, 106, 115, 119, 121-147, 179- 
184 

Nativism, 285 

Natural and moral virtue, 33, 72 
Natural rights, 433-440 
Natural selection, 324 
Naturalism, 286, 294 
Necessitarianism, 159 
Neo-Platonism, 48-50, 53, 257 
Nomological theory, 351, 359 

Objective morality, 116, 463-466 
Obligation. See Duty 
Ontological theories, 350, 357 
Origin, 314 

Passions, 106, 108 

Perfectionism, 32, 354, 385-388 

Personality, 451, 457, 460 

Physical science, 12 

Plato, 25-32, 255 

Pleasure, 20-21, 26, 44, 362, 364, 

372, 374, 376 
Politics, 10, 37 
Predestination, 172, 189 
Predictability, 170, 178 
Preventive punishment, 241 
Propertv, 435, 440 
Protestantism, 60-62, 258 
Prudence, 143 



Psychology, 7 
Punishment, 240-250, 462 

Ration ab actions, 197, 235-237 
Reason, 29, 106, 136-147, 308 
Reflex actions, 110, 196 
Reformation, 60 
Religion, 13, 19, 400-407 
Responsibility, 118, 188, 224-240 
Result, 115, 119, 148 
Retribution, 246-249, 463 
Right, 97-101 
Rights, 98, 424-454 
Rights, ground of, 441-452 

Sanction, 41 0-415 

Schopenhaur, 260 

Self-control, 459 

Shaftesbury, 83 

Sidgwick, 27 

Social rights, 426 

Sociology, 11 

Socrates, 21-24, 255 

Sophists, 19-20 

Spencer, 327-332, 365/_380 

Spinoza, 65-67 

Spontaneity, 154, 202 

Stewart, Dugald, 260 

Stoics, 39-43, 256 

Subjective morality, 116 

Supremacy of conscience, 274-282 

Teeeoeogicab theory, 353 
Theism, 285, 290-294 
Theological theory, 351 
Theories of morality, 349-397 
Theo-volitional theory, 352 
Trendelenburg, 424 

Univobism, 165 
Utilitarianism, 45, 354, 361-384 

Vabidity, 15 
Velleity, 156, 205 
Vice, 90 

Virtue, 30, 34, 40, 90 
Volition, 106, 159, 177 
Voluntary, 35 

Wibb, 106, 150-223 

Wrong, 97 
Wuttke, 261 



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